echoes from the valley, pt 2

it’s easy to think you’re invincible until you fall on your face.
and it’s just as easy to think you’re a failure after you do.
but neither stories are always that cut and dry.

i say this after literally and proverbially doing so last week during my latest ultra trail race endeavor. in characteristic echo fashion, i am going to return to some of the takeaways from that race which i bulleted last week and expound a bit more as i’ve chewed on that experience...

so yes, i literally fell on my face. a classic catching of the toe on some root or rock that “jumped up at me”, and i have a purple toenail to prove it. and yet it has nothing to do with that moment at all.

||a conditional identity is a fragile one. underneath my definition of success hides the formula for where i’ve put my worth.||

i started that race in desperate attempt to convince myself that i was invincible. a couple weeks after accomplishing my first 50-mile trail race (which i’m wildly proud of and makes for a much more encouraging race report...another tale for another time...), and despite my body’s cues telling me otherwise, i toed the line for the next adventure, joining the [trail] rat race, seeking to keep up with the [fast, fit, trail] Jones'.

and it went well...until it didn’t.
no need to bore with the anatomical considerations and failures, but in short - the last 5 miles were a slow, slog, sufferfest. bringing my pace to a walk, to a crawl, to a limp.

the finish line seemed impossibly far and tears creeping suspiciously close.
and although i gimped over the finish line, the resounding story confirmed: i failed.

how did i get here?

||worthiness, identity, and belovedness are starting line inventories, not finish line assessments.||

my definition of success and worth and value was way outta whack.

the satisfaction and accomplishment addiction of tackling new heights and lengths in trail running had slowly come to completely fog my lens for why i ever ventured onto the mountain in the first place. the bibs, metals, paces, splits, blisters, scars, pictures, blah, blah, blah, had finally buried my why.

so i pinned on a bib, to pin on my worth again.
signed up for another wild, crazy event to reclaim my wild, crazy identity.
and calculated the pace that meant success, with all other outcomes deemed failures.

then fell on my face.

|| if i wake up worthy, i don’t have to spend my days seeking to find it.||

so in this scenerio, the failure was toeing the line with my worth in the balance. showing up to chase down a new accomplishment. striving to earn my worth and affirmation again over 32 long, dirty, painful miles.

the win was crossing the finish line. not in a sense of toxic, grin-and-bear-it heroism (i’ve already admitted it was dumb and i’m lucky to not have taken a worse injury out of it), but crossing the finish line of a broken narrative. leaving behind an earn, deserve, striving posture again.

the win was found somewhere at the wall. falling to my knees again, face first with a humble pie, unavoidably met with the crash-and-burn invitation to rethink where i’ve missed it.
where i’ve trans-planted my worth.
where i’ve misplaced my identity.
where i’ve misinterpreted my value.
and where i’ve lost my wonder.
that was the finish line...

and is now is my new start line.

to be continued….