Often in life we hold on when we should let go. We dig in deep instead of walking away. We hold on too tight for fear of loosing something when we know it’s time to loosen our grip. It’s hard. Our instinct is to tighten our grip because while it is hard to hold on, letting go is even harder.

We see this with so many parts of our lives and the lives of people we know. Everything in society and media reinforces this –

Don’t Give Up

Hold on Tight

The Only Thing Holding You Back is Yourself

Push Yourself to the Limit

Yes, sometimes this is true. Sometimes we do need to hold on tight, not give up, and push ourselves to the limit. There are also times that this does not work for us and actually does us a great disservice. The trick is to know when that is the right advice and when it is time to call it a day, let it go.

I’ve talked about letting go in the past. Sometimes we let go only to grab back on and don’t even realize it. It’s a long and tedious process. Holding on tighter and thinking we are doing what needs to be doing.

I’ve been finding that starting over with no expectations has been both surprising and good. It’s actually much harder than you think because we all have expectations. Sometimes in order to find yourself, you need to let go of all that is holding you back. All the expectations that are actually hold you back and don’t let you move forward.

As mentioned before, I recently started training for my virtual NYC Half. I was looking forward to actually training and have been going by heart rate and not pace. It has been freeing to not watch my pace. It’s been harder than I thought to try to not push to run faster. Although do not confuse this with thinking that these are not hard runs. To not feel like I am failing because I am trying to maintain something that for now I have no business trying to maintain. It has taken away disappointments of not hitting paces, not maintaining paces, or dealing with the effects of doing so. Effects from my Hypoparathyroidism like muscle spasms, muscles cramping, and recovery that more than your average recovery.

Last time I was training for NYC Marathon, I was training to run a sub 2 half which I ended up doing. I still remember pushing during the race. I remember feeling confident in my training. I vividly remember the last push to the finish line and so much about the day. That was where I was then. I recently found a slip of paper with paces that I used for a training run and it struck me how different my running is now. How much has changed in such a short time and how long it has taken me to realize different isn’t bad, just different.

I also know that there are so many that have Hypoparathyroidism that would love to run the paces that I am running. That would love to be healthy enough to even run let alone train for a Half Marathon. No I am not where I used to be, but I am still able to do so much and should appreciate it for what it is not what it used to be….. not what I want it to be…… not for what I think it should be…… for what it is.

When you take pace off the table and just listen to your body, you might actually surprise yourself. Yesterday I went for a 4 mile treadmill run. Although my treadmill and my Garmin have differing average paces, I felt good with the pace. This run was just right for where I am now. It was hard, but it was also doable. It is where I should realistically be and it where I should be running. Dreams are necessary and worth striving for but living in reality is necessary too.

Time to lay it out there.

Time to be proud of where I am because I should be proud of it