Welcome 2022. I may be a bit late to the new year, at least with writing, but here I am. I discovered this post tucked away in my Drafts section, cutely titled, It’s about failure. How accurate that is nearly three years later. The “created on” date is marked June 12, 2019. And what remains of those thoughts and ideas are remnants of a simpler time. A lot has happened since June of 2019. This was the early days of my marathon training—my first marathon, which would be canceled due to COVID-19. That happened sometime around March 2020. And then everything shut down. Next came the summer of 2020 and the addition of Archie, a goldendoodle puppy, to our family. What better time to get a puppy than during a pandemic when you couldn’t go anywhere. Well, it turns out that there may have been a better time than three months before the birth of our second child, Savannah. She entered this world wildly and courageous, on her own free will, three weeks early. By this time, I have not been running consistently since early 2020. When my first marathon was canceled, I kind of just lost interest in running. I felt I was robbed of months of training and suffering that I just didn’t want to run anymore. But, I did begin to run again, sporadically, in October and November. I felt like I was making progress—juggling a newborn, a jealous, curious toddler, a puppy, the new inner-workings of a remote-work world, and sharing the internet bandwidth with my wife who was teaching fourth-graders online.
And then the holidays arrived. We nearly escaped COVID in 2020. I tested positive on December 31st and my wife tested positive a few days later. Miraculously, our two, young children tested negative and never developed any serious symptoms. Us on the other hand, sheeesh. I could barely walk up a flight of stairs without taking several breaks to catch my breath. Running was an afterthought. Writing? Ha! Eventually, we recovered without any serious side effects or long-term conditions. We were the lucky ones. Looking back, I probably began running way too soon—January 9th. I struggled for weeks after that, never really feeling like myself. I don’t think it was until mid-February that I started feeling strong again. I was doing a combination of Ring Fit exercises, T25 workouts, and short walks and runs. I was slowly building back strength and endurance. I felt good, in fact, I felt great!
Enter summer league basketball 2021. Basketball was back and I was ready to play! It wasn’t but 2-3 games in that I blew up my thumb. I still don’t have full range of motion in it, but I wrapped that in KT Tape and wore a thumb brace and came back a few games later. That first game back I sprained not one, but both of my ankles on the same play. That happened on July 12th—almost 1 week after running a 20:44 5K 4th of July race and taking 1st in my age group. I couldn’t walk without crutches for about two full weeks. This was one of those scary injuries—the kind that makes you think about what you’re doing and why. I could not remember a time in my life when I could not walk. The first few days, I was butt-scooting around my house because crutches were too difficult to maneuver with two bad ankles.
I didn’t run again until August 9th. I ran one mile and it hurt a lot. I ran again on August 16th. 1.5 miles and I had to stop. Not happening. It wasn’t until early- to mid-September that I began running again. I’m a cross-country coach for the local high school and this was a saving grace for me. I was able to come back slowly and intentionally, with the help of a team full of crazy kids ready to ditch their masks and get outside. The rest of 2021 went smoothly, besides COVID restrictions easing up and then coming back due to omicrom.
And now, we’re here. 2022. What will this year bring? Nobody knows. But I do know several things. We have to be okay with failure. In fact, we almost have to look forward to it. These past few years have definitely shaped who I am. I’ve grown. I have failed. And I have succeeded. I am ready to continue my journey in 2022 and I am excited to see what new challenges and failures come my way. To get started this year, I am challenging myself to:
- Get back to running!
- Maybe a running streak? So far, I have ran every single day of 2022 (as of January 28th). I have not committed to the goal of running every single day of the year, but it is in the back of my mind.
- Get back to racing! I want to race more. I raced once in 2021. I don’t think I raced at all in 2020.
- The Goggins Challenge — 4x4x48 (Run 4 miles every 4 hours for 48 hours).
- Blog at least once a month.
And here are four quotes that inspired this post, from 2019 and now.
“Running is about pushing back against that insecurity and uncertainty. You will have crap races? Race anyway. You will get injured? Run anyway. Failure is right around the corner, but like a clueless teen in a horror movie, we run around that corner anyway. In that way, it’s just like life.”
“Running can be transcendent and magical, but just as often it’s mundane and disheartening.”
“It’s about the experiences and how they shape your sense of self.”
“So go for it. Run with passion, race fearlessly, chase your craziest dreams without caring too much about how realistic they are. Do that, and yeah, you might fail.”
P.s. Somewhere in the middle of the pandemic, I also became a TikTok star. I’m not sure what happened but I cut my hair with a bowl and people loved it…
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