I won't start over, but it's time to reset

I'm not someone who usually puts a lot of stock in New Year's resolutions.  I'm not super comfortable with the idea that the changing of the year, the ticking of the clock, and the movement from one day to the next should determine my motivation to improve my life.

I mean, I get it.  I understand it.  It's a big number that's changing.  It's a metaphorical re-start.  It's a point in time to look at and say "There.  There is where I'll make the change."  And more power to you for it.  If you choose to change your life for the positive, I don't care your reasoning for it.  Do it.  And keep doing it (don't give up when January peters out).

But for me, I've just never been a fan of looking at New Years that way.  I'm the type of person that is constantly evaluating, re-evaluating, analyzing, over-analyzing, reflecting, rethinking, and setting goals (or getting angry at myself for not meeting them).  I do not need nor want yet another reason to examine my life and weigh its successes and failures against one another.  Oftentimes I just get fed up with examining my life.  Sometimes I just want to live it.

This year, however, my bah humbug attitude towards the New Year seems to have become overcome with more optimism than I typically find in early January.  Maybe it's because of the challenges this past year threw at me.  Maybe it's just because of the challenges of the past several months, which seem to be fading away.  Maybe it's because in exactly 10 days, I will be 30 (2014 is a big number, but 30 is way bigger).

Whatever it is, I'm feeling glad that 2013 is over and 2014 has shown up.  I'm ready more than ready to hit the reset button.

Remember way back when we had Nintendo?  Not the stuff we have now.  Not Wii or Xbox or Playstation or whatever else is out there now that I have no idea about.  Real old school Nintendo is what I'm thinking of.

Yeah, this one.  From the days when we were tethered to the box by a cord.

Remember how it worked?  Pixelated graphics, only four directions to move.  Walk or run, no in between.  Duck Hunt was the most amazing invention we'd ever conceived.

I refused to play the actual duck shooting one--I'd only shoot at the clay
discs.  Such a righteous little child I was.

Remember when you were playing these games when sometimes the screen would just gradually start to turn to snow?  You wouldn't notice it at first, but pretty soon you'd start to lose your super fancy graphics to the stripey fuzz of an analog TV.

And the solution to this?  Give the machine a tap.  On the top or side.  Sometimes with more force than others.

Then, you'd keep playing.  Everything would be good for a little while, until things started to succumb to the fuzz again.  Give it a gentle tap (or more forceful slap) and all would be good again.

This would continue.  Minutes of clear pixelated fun followed by some bouts of fuzziness, knock it back to life, repeat.

(Bear with me, I'll get back to the New Year thing)

But sometimes, you'd get fed up with it.  When the fuzzies came more frequently or too quickly, or when the forceful slams stopped working, it was time to give up and hit the reset button.  Lose everything since the last time you manually saved the game.  Accept minor defeat by the machine.  Reset.

And after that, if the troubles still continued, the last resort was to power down.  Shut it off.  Pull out the game and blow on the little metal teeth, reinsert game, and power back up.  But that was only for major defeats.  When the machine really refused to work.

With all that in mind, here's what 2013 was for me:  it was that space of time between when the game hit the first fuzzy point to when you decided to reset.

Last January, things started off working great.  I conquered the Goofy Challenge with more than a smile on my face.

1 weekend, 2 races, 3 medals. Immeasurable fun.

I felt strong starting training for my next marathon after taking a forced 2 week hiatus from running (my meager attempt to avoid burnt-out runner syndrome).  February hit, and I entered what I termed the "February Doldrums."  This was the first little bit of fuzziness.  Not too much though, and with a little tap, all was clear again.

After that, I made it through my March Madness of races: Hot Chocolate 15K, St. Patty's Day Dash, and culminating with a pleasantly unexpected PR at the Mercer Island Half.

Even got an unexpected medal.

April and May were filled with peak marathon training.  There were clear ups and fuzzy downs.  Nothing too drastic.  Nothing that couldn't be quickly knocked back into focus once it got fuzzy.  But, the fuzzy points got a little more frequent.  There were more runs that didn't feel great sprinkled with some really great ones (the great ones being the ones that made it on blog recaps).  The clear spots didn't last quite as long as I wanted.

And then there was June.  The Seattle Rock N Roll Marathon.  And let's just say, that didn't go so well.  You can go back and read the blog recap if you haven't already.  A race recap titled "I got it done" doesn't show a whole lot of enthusiasm about how it went.

And after that, the fuzziness stuck around for a little longer than normal.  For at least a month, things just weren't right.  Running wasn't what I wanted to be doing.  This time around, it required a big hard slap to clear things up again.  Which, luckily, happened when I ran the Ragnar Relay.

For the first time in what felt like a long time, I had 3 really
great runs.  Including one really awesome 9 miler in pitch
darkness at 2 am.

That little runner's high lasted a little bit.  But I quickly refocused my energies on my quickly approaching triathlon.  I turned my focus from running to swimming and biking.  I could easily ignore my lack of enjoyment in running when I had other things to focus on.  Swimming and biking kept me occupied enough to keep the world clear through the summer months.  As I approached my race day in mid-September though, things started getting a little fuzzy again.  I was ready to be done training.  Aside from my minor 2 week hiatus back in January, I had been training for one thing or another for an entire year.

That little fuzziness was cleared up by the completion of my first half-iron distance triathlon.  I even managed 3rd place in my tiny division.

I may not be a whole iron woman, but I can at least claim
to be half of one.

After that though, things seemed to go quickly back to fuzz again.  I was done.  I was burnt out, trying my best to keep myself motivated to be out there running ("rediscovering my love for running" as I termed it).  But it just wasn't clicking.  By early October when I crossed the finish line of the Portland Half with my mom, I had all but given up on trying to clear the screen.

Mom's first half!  Excited to do this again with the dad in tow sometime in the
future.

And then, just a short week or so later, my knee injury showed it's ugly face.  And since, then, as positive as I've tried to remain about the whole thing, things have pretty much looked like this without much relief:

Lots and lots of snow.  And not the good kind.

I took just about a month off completely from running, and did very little running once I started again.  There have been PT appointments, attempts at other forms of exercise, and many frustrating attempts at running.  There was the Seattle Half on Thanksgiving weekend.

A fun day, but that's pretty much all I can say about it.

After that, I ran off and on through December, hoping every time that maybe this time it wouldn't hurt.  Maybe this time I'd be able to go a little faster.  Maybe this time things would start to feel better.

But it didn't.  Not really.  No matter how many times I tried to knock that stupid Nintendo, the fuzz just wouldn't clear.  I even stopped keeping up with blog posts.  Because I didn't have anything very positive to say, so I didn't really feel much like publicizing it.

Just before New Years though (literally, a couple of days), something happened.  I decided to go out for a run.  I decided to keep following my 5:1 run:walk ratio prescribed by my PT.  And I paid really close attention to what I was doing.  I didn't think about anything else but running.  And here's what happened: I noticed that when I held my body the way the PT told me too (and I was able to now with my newly strengthened core and glutes from a few weeks of daily strengthening/stretching exercises), my knee stopped hurting.  Not completely.  The pain went from a 4 to a 1 (or 2).  There was still a nagging tightness, but when it started hurting, I could adjust my form and make it stop.

Control.  I found a way to control it.  And OMG the world is right again when I can control things.

I went to PT the next day and bragged about my new discovery.  I celebrated with my physical therapist.  I told her that I was finally seeing a light.  It was way down there at the end of a long long tunnel, but it was there.  Sorry to switch up the metaphor.  Bad writer.  I'll stop that now.

Then it was New Years.  I got dressed up super fancy with my friends, drank way too much, had a lot of fun, and celebrate the onset of 2014.

And after a couple more mostly successful runs, here we are.  And here's what I've decided about 2014: it's time to hit the reset button.  I'm not saying that I'm power off, shutting down, or starting over.  I don't need or want that.  But I needed a reset.  Enough of the quick fixes--the little taps to try to get myself back in place.  They aren't working anymore and were just a minor fix anyways.  I need to face the minor defeat and reset.

I have an inkling of a plan of what re-setting looks like for me.  But it's just forming.  For now, admitting that I need it is enough.  Knowing that, I went for a run today.  I kept to my 5:1, but I focused on what I should and enjoyed the struggle it took to push myself just a little faster.  I didn't and won't focus on pace in this reset, but at the end of it all, I was pretty happy to see a couple sub-9 miles even with my walking interval.  I've started the reset.  It's beginning to work.

I'm going to keep working on this reset, and will probably tell you about it at some point.  But not yet.

In the meantime, Happy 2014.  It's going to be a great.

I can literally feel it.