Nearly two weeks ago I began tapering for a big race. I’ve tapered for races before, though none that I’ve prepared for as thoroughly and none this significant. If you don’t know what a taper is, it is when you reduce your intensity and volume prior to a race. Stated basically, you run less and easier. There are so many different schools of thought when it comes to the taper, and various approaches. It’s a highly individualized process that’s based on someone’s preference, their desire to abide by a coach’s or plan’s recommendation, and sometimes, what’s worked for them before.
When I embarked upon this journey, I decided that I would follow every single piece of the workout plan prescribed for me. Fundamentally, I understand that anything can happen. Meaning, you can plan and work, and then, life throws you a curveball. That said, I still felt like following the plan religiously would afford me the best chance of success.
And so, much like I followed every other dictated workout for the last ten months, I abided by the taper. I want to delve more into what that meant for me, but what I am not going to do is talk about the distances I ran, or the speeds at which I ran them. It’s just not important. Well, it was important, it IS important, but it’s not relevant to what I want to impart in this post.
I’m going to go off topic (seemingly) for a moment. A friend of mine recently ended a relationship. A very serious, meaningful relationship. She is, as you might imagine, suffering egregiously. Even when we know that a decision is the best thing for us, it can still hurt like crazy. And so, it does. And she is way in her feels. And I know that feeling, because I’ve been there.
I can tell her all day long how she deserves better than the treatment she was receiving. I can tell her how worthy and amazing I think she is, in the most general and also, the biggest, sense. But, in the end, it won’t really matter. Not right now. Because right now, she is IN it. I will still say those things to her because I want her to know and hear, but also, I know she is just going to feel, and I can’t do anything about that. I’m just hoping that my love and friendship are a teeny silver lining, providing a modicum of comfort during the darkest bits of this process.
What I told her is that really, this is the worst of it, this part. This uncomfortable, torturous pain that is with her right now is the part that will bring her to the brink. It is in those moments that we reconsider the decisions we’ve made. It is in those moments where we think that maybe we should run away from it all. But it is those moments that we have to burrow into. It is that discomfort that we have to sit with, live with, and experience in the fullest way that it presents. And it will, present.
In that way, moments like that which my friend is experiencing are like the taper. And outside of the obvious part of it all, I sought to understand why these life moments feel so parallel. And then, it dawned on me.
It’s the slow down.
It’s the soul-crushing pause.
When we are moving around [at light speed], everything is just everything. People are people, situations are situations- and we don’t really have to feel anything that we don’t want to. It’s just our every day. I love this man and I am with him and maybe we fight, but then we make up, and I get to move past it and decide that it was nothing, really. I get to have amnesia. I get to craft a new narrative every day, or reinvent my same narrative as something new, every day. I get to be a different version of the same person, or a carbon copy of myself. I can watch minutes and hours and days and months and years fly by. I can comment on it, but it doesn’t have to do anything to me, unless I want it to. Nothing has to change.
And then, we choose the slow down, the taper. Or it chooses us. And we are faced with the agony of the passage of time. The way in which our parts hurt. The way in which we anticipate failure. The way in which we wish we did things differently. The regret. The hope. The agonizing confusion. The way we trick ourselves into thinking that things are not as they seem. The way we think that maybe we should be doing more, doing better. The way in which we feel unworthy. The way in which we fear. So. Much. Fear.
My friend cried on the couch curled up next to her dog and I cried in the middle of Trader Joes and we both admitted that it made us feel better, but only a little bit better and only temporarily. We both spoke to the understanding of the reality. This is a choice we made. There is no one we have to answer to, really, except ourselves. And yet, we know that there is something inside of us that wants us to succeed.
What does success really look like though? Is the winning moment when I cross the finish line or she moves onto something or someone new? Is the trophy event when I complete all the miles and she stops tearing up looking at his text messages? Or is maybe the moment of real triumph when we decide that we don’t need to grieve anymore or wring our hands with worry or let anxiety cloud our mind and our vision and our being?
What does it look like when we understand that the taper isn’t about torture at all? The taper is, in fact, the last bit of work that must be done. It is when everything we’ve worked for is upon us and we have to sit in the discomfort of that and get to the other side of a thing. It is when we have to realize that there is an actual other side, and that other side is terrifying and also, beautiful. It is when we realize that there is no failing because whatever happens is what is meant to be, and we win when we serve ourselves in the best way possible.
This taper has been agonizing for me. I’ve been quiet and brutally contemplative and filled with self-criticism. But also, it’s been an important lesson. This race is not the end all be all. No matter what happens, I’ve fought for ten months to get here, and that’s really something. I loathe kitschy sayings and yet, I finalize realize that it’s true: life is not about getting to a destination, and it very much is about the journey.
And so, we work, and also, we taper.
And whatever happens, we find a way to do it all over again, and again, and again.
X
L.
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