Practicing Self Care

Sometimes self care sucks.  Sometimes it means giving up on a goal.  Sometimes it means letting someone down.  And sometimes it means letting yourself down.  Yesterday, for me, self care looked like pretty much all those things.

I'd been waiting until the last possible moment to see if my knee would get better in time for the Houston Marathon this weekend.  It didn't.  As my knee stayed the same my Instagram and Facebook feeds started blowing up with all things marathon.  5 more days....what are you running for this year?  4 more days the finish line is being constructed downtown.  3 more days....today is the last day to defer running in 2015 for 2016.  For the past few weeks its been pictures of people's training runs.  Pictures of finish lines and smiles.  Excitement.  As it all filled my newsfeed the logical decision I'd made weeks ago, to defer if it was the right decision for my body, got harder to make.  I can't tell you how many times I'd pictured crossing that finish line.  How many times I'd thought about running past the lululemon cheer station and seeing all the people I used to work with.  Picturing race day got me through each and every one of my training runs.  It was a really hard picture to let go of as I logged into the marathon site and clicked the button to defer the race.  

In the bigger scheme of things putting the race off a year isn't that big a deal.  I can still look forward to that moment I cross the finish line, it'll just be next year instead of this weekend.  Self care can be hard. Sometimes it means giving up things you really want and for a type A like me, a lot of the time it means learning when to back off.  Just like yoga, and really like life in general, self care is a practice.  

Good luck to everyone running this Sunday!  I'll be out there cheering! #houmarathon

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lululemon cheer station, Houston Marathon 2014