A week before the Glass Slipper challenge (a 19.3 mile race over two days!), I wasn’t excited, I was sick.
(I’ll spare you the details, but just know, it was gross!)
I’m not sure what bothered me most: the inability to ever maintain the correct temperature to blanket ratio for more than a minute, the incredible amount of tissue boxes that I consume in my snot-filled state, the hazy, drooped eye lids which only give me a partial view of the world, or the lack of productivity.
I know, I’m ridiculous! I was ill. I’m allowed to have a cold! But I sat, blew my nose, drank my tea, cleared my throat and thought of all the things I should have been doing. My mind raced saying, “I should be running one last training run. I should be stretching. I should be packing my bag to ensure the correct calorie intake for the races.”
But I couldn’t do any of that right then. I sat, dwelling on the miles I had to run shortly. I was nervous. I had been training for months. I had been looking forward to this challenge for months! I needed to find some endurance somewhere deep inside of me. I sent a bemoaning text to my friend about my viral state and anxiety about my upcoming physical exertion and she wrote back, “Channel Michael Jordan.”
I knew what she meant. Michael Jordan’s performance during game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals is the stuff of legends. He woke up at 3 am the morning of the game with the flu. It’s almost all the commentators talked about throughout the game. The look in his eyes. The way he walked out hanging his head. And his incredible MVP-earning performance throughout the game. He found his drive deep down inside. He had endurance he didn’t realize. He relied on his training and his teammates to make it through.
And I did the same thing!
These races became about something bigger to me. It was about finishing, not timing. It was about proving myself wrong and finding strength and energy I didn’t realize I had. I earned my Glass Slipper. I earned my medals. I earned a nap! Maybe I’ll go channel Rip Van Winkle instead of Michael Jordan for a while…
Where do you find energy when you need it most?