I'll be honest, this is probably my fifth attempt at writing this post. I thought I had plenty of material, and certainly experience, to write about something I love--the comfort zone. Maybe I like it too much for an endurance athlete, but that's besides the point. I had almost given up on this topic, and was close to leaving it for dead on the side of Idea Road. I had written and re-written the first two paragraphs, only to read them and discover that they were paradoxical and flowed just about as well black strap molasses. So, what led me to finally be able to write this post? The Melon Run. My first 5K-ish distance race since...oh dear, I don't even remember.
I decided to do this patriotic and melon-themed Fourth of July run on a whim. If anything, it would be a "fun" workout and a way to gauge how my fitness is coming along. It did cross my mind about how I hadn't raced such a distance in recent memory, and how I had been on marathon mode for a solid 8 months or so...but I pushed it aside. It was three miles, how hard could it be? Oh boy, would I find out. Surprisingly (or maybe not-so surprisingly) it was my brain that gave up before my legs did.
The morning was on the cool side because of the barrage of rain that we had been getting (typical Gainesville summer), but the temperature was rising rapidly and the humidity was thick. I found myself at the starting line feeling devoid of nerves, or really of any feeling at all. I felt almost out of place. The only races I have done over the past few years have been triathlons, half marathons, or marathons. What was I doing here, running only 3 miles?
The siren went off, and I turned my legs over to a 6:30 pace. It wasn't anything crazy for me right now, at least through the first mile. As I coasted past the one mile sign, I glanced down to see my watch tick to 7:15. Confusion spread through my body, starting from the back of my head and shooting to my toes. I knew I was running faster than that, and I've always understood that small races like this weren't always marked accurately. But I wanted no part of that rationale. I began to convince myself that I was struggling, and some imaginary fatigue began to settle in. It took me until the 2-mile marker (which I think was off as well) to get my head under control, just in time to go up the biggest hill of the race. Chugging up that hill was probably the most physically challenging part of the race, but it was ironically in that moment that I had an interesting epiphany. My legs weren't tired. I was breathing hard, yet under control. Why, then, did I want to stop or back the pace down? I was out of my comfort zone. My legs had the fitness, but the unfamiliarity of such exertion made me want to quit. Yet another struggle with something out of my security bubble.
So, without further ado, here is my post about the comfort zone:
The comfort zone is familiar. There is little ambiguity, and you know what to do and how you should feel. There's nothing that can sneak up on you; no reason to look over your shoulder. It's not necessarily that the task at hand is easy, but any difficulty is met with confidence and seems manageable. The comfort zone helps you feel like a superstar: you feel proficient, talented, able. It's that workout that you do
when all else fails, the city you live in, the things you're good at,
the job that you've worked at for years, the people that know you best. There are plenty of positives that come along with stability and consistency. Consistency is the key to anything in which you wish to accomplish, and builds ability over time. But there becomes a point where you stop growing; where you suck all of the benefit from a situation. That doesn't mean that you get worse or that something suddenly becomes awful...but rather you stop changing. There is no change without challenge, and I think all of us want change on some level. But before we can meet the challenge, we have to take that leap. It's like trying to cross a fast-paced river by way of stepping stones. We have to try to leap to that stone that seems an inch or two too far away.
In training, we have to be able to do those workouts that make us uncomfortable or feel like we suck (pardon the informality, but there's just no better word to use for that "I can't do this" feeling). We have to be willing to suck...something not many type A's can come to terms with. A certain level or frustration is good, and by "certain level" I mean as much as you can stand. I'm convinced that the best athletes and the best people are able to handle a large spectrum of obligations.
Lately, I've had a good dose of things that have made me uncomfortable. It has felt like getting pushed into the pool at a party...unexpectedly disturbing and taking a while to dry off. It easy to understand that all will improve with time, but it's difficult to find the patience and bide that time. It's a process that involves little successes and sometimes big failures; and ironically progress is made during the failures, not the successes. Once you completely sell yourself on that idea, you're over halfway there.
"Nothing worth it in life is easy."
