Kerri On Down The Road

How do you view success and failure?  Do you see these as existing at two ends of a spectrum, mutually exclusive of each other, and often the motivation behind ceaseless striving and relentless self-criticism? It has taken me many years to realize that life doesn't need to be a matter of strictly winning or losing, celebration or dejection.  When we don't achieve a goal, we gain the opportunity to learn, make adjustments, and, most importantly, to try again. We lose when we allow ourselves to get caught up in the binary of success or failure, missing out on opportunities to course-correct and approach a problem or work towards a goal differently. It is amazing how limiting this black-and-white, all-or-nothing way of looking at life can be and how much of our potential we miss out on realizing, simply because we decide at the first negative outcome that we weren't meant to achieve the goal that we have set.  As someone who personally sets high standards, I find it incredib...

 Last weekend marked the first real snowfall of the season.  It was an early one, and unlike typical early snows, this one was significant, and it was cold enough for the snow to stick around.  Looking out my window throughout the day, I noticed the snow falling, but didn't give it much thought.  The snow itself wasn't dense; the flakes were small, and we weren't being dumped upon.  What I didn't give credit to was the continuous nature of the storm, and the persistence with which the snow continued to fall all day and through the night. The next morning, however, was a different story.  When I went out to clear my car before heading for an early dip, I was shocked to see just how much snow had accumulated on it.  There was much more than I had anticipated, and I silently gave myself a pat on the back for getting out of the house with enough time to properly tackle scraping and brushing off the storm's remnants.  As I worked to unearth my car, I r...

 The mind is an incredible thing.  It works so hard to protect us from harm, or perceived harm, and it is this very tendency that often causes us to pull back from aspirations to stay comfortable and safe. All it took was one morning of waking up feeling less than optimal.  The previous day had been quite active, and the sleep I got going into it wasn't terrific.  So yes, I woke up feeling tired and decided to take the day off instead of pushing to complete a scheduled workout.  Hello, spiral of doom.  I found my mind wandering as I put away my running gear and deleted the workout from my app.  The place it was heading towards was one filled with doubts and second thoughts regarding the training plans I had started to formulate for the year ahead.  Suddenly, my ability (or inability) to complete one short run this morning meant the entire plan I was working on would not be feasible.  I could feel the downward spiral cueing up and preparing to...

Have you ever noticed how hard it is to hold onto something with all your might? No matter how strong your grip strength might be, or how light the object is, the more you cling, the harder it becomes to maintain a steady hold, and before you know it, you are required to surrender the object to gravity.  The same principle applies to non-physical objects, such as ideas, narratives, and identifiers.  The harder we try to hold onto things we deem important or worthy, the less able we are to maintain a connection with them. For so many years, I have clung to achievement as a cornerstone of my identity.  If I am not succeeding and exceeding, then who am I, and more importantly, what does this mean for my sense of self in the future?  Is it possible to be truly okay with being okay, and who decides what that measure is, anyway? Up until a few months ago, I would have answered no, that there is nothing okay about being "just" okay, and that trying harder was the only remed...

 I am not someone who tends towards stillness.  I don't fidget or shake my legs when I sit still, or anything like that. My "style" of busy-ness comes in the form of always being in search of what's next.  A new goal, a new interest - anything to take up space that has been created by the completion of the last item on my list.  A song lyric I love that sums this up perfectly states, "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."  Sometimes I am in search of the new beginning before the end, lest there be a gap or idle time created by indecision or a pause in activity.  This has been my pattern, until recently. Something about last weekend's marathon experience felt different.  It wasn't because I posted a new personal best time, or that I finished the race feeling fresh and ready to tackle my next workout.  Quite the opposite.  My finishing time for this one was slower than my previous one, and my effort at the end was more int...

 Yesterday, I ran my fifth full marathon, my first in two years.  The idea felt daunting at first - I hadn't forgotten how all-encompassing the training could feel, spanning sixteen weeks and requiring hundreds of kilomteters to be travelled simply to complete those last 42.2.  And yet, there I was, signing up and taking on the work. Training went well - the weeks seemed to pass more quickly than I expected them to, and despite a slightly cranky hamstring, my body and mind adapted to the workouts and didn't put up roadblocks along the way.  Getting up and getting out for those early morning runs and long weekend runs became routine, and something I looked forward to.  Especially the long runs that had me crossing the city instead of sticking to very well-worn routes from previous training blocks.  Friends started to inquire about the big day, and I noticed that many of them seemed to be more excited about the race than I was.  With it not being my firs...

As next weekend's marathon approaches, I find myself in the middle of a precarious time known as "the taper".  This is the point in training where the workload is pulled back to allow for rest, recovery, and repair before waking up and lacing up for the big event.  While this may sound like something that a person would look forward to, relish, and embrace, it isn't always.   The mere act of taking your foot off the gas pedal leading into your goal race feels very counterintuitive and unnerving. What will happen to my fitness if I don't push myself right up to race day?  Won't I lose my edge and come in soft? Why does it feel so uncomfortable to not follow my usual routine?  Did I do this right?  Did I do ANY of this right? And so on, and so forth.  The thoughts, worries, and questions come swirling and repeating themselves, with the only solace being the knowledge that every other runner who is in the midst of a taper is also facing down the same...