At the time of this writing, the backyard brawl (Pitt vs. WVU) was on the TV and I was about to sat “Let’s Go… Mountaineers” but then WVU’s QB through a pick-six, allowing Pitt to take the lead by 7 with only 3 minutes to go. We’ll see how this game ends…
I hope you all have had a great week, the 30 min. timer has been started and I’m off to the races for this article.
Being Uncomfortable
This article is a summary of my running thoughts over the past few weeks as I’ve been training for my next half marathon (more on this later).
For the longest time in my life, I always enjoyed “being comfortable”. To me, this means that I wasn’t really doing anything risky. When looking back I believe it’s because I was afraid of failing if I took that risk of doing something outside my comfort zone.
This is something that most people experience in life but I believe it’s something that holds each of us back from evolving into the best version of ourselves.
Queue David Goggins
At some point early on in college, I heard a podcast with David Goggins as the guest. Many of you are probably familiar with the name, but if you aren’t let’s just say this dude is a tank.
He’s a former navy seal turned endurance athlete that has defined what it means to push your body to its limit.
The main message in the podcast from Goggins was to “get comfortable with being uncomfortable”. In short, the only way to callous our minds and push ourselves in life requires us to dig deep and do things that we aren’t comfortable with.
My Journey
I’ve always enjoyed taking risks in business and being uncomfortable with the hard work and decisions it takes to build something meaningful, but that’s where it ended. For the longest time, I was “comfortable” with not eating the best or keeping up with my fitness. This complacency led to some weight gain that quickly compounded over a few years.
Starting almost two years ago and after binging all of Goggin’s content, enough was enough. I started to get uncomfortable with my eating and fitness. This meant:
running when I didn’t want to (even if it was cold, snowy, or raining)
cooking instead of eating out for convenience
getting back in the gym
tracking my macros to know exactly what’s going in my body
Making these decisions gave me a new appreciation for how I fuel my body and running. After getting used to being uncomfortable I decided to go a step further and sign up for my first official half marathon in Austin, TX. I completed this in February of this year and it felt amazing going across the finish line.
Sticking With It
I hit my goal for the half marathon but then in the weeks to follow I fell into a slump for a few months and didn’t run as much or stay consistent with my eating.
I’ve realized this is normal, but the most important part of being uncomfortable is that you always stick with it and come back for more.
Let’s just say I’m back for more. For the past few months, I have been training for “Hell on the Hill” in Maine, an event run by alldayrunning company.
Believe me, it’s just that, Hell… on a hill. This is the hilliest half marathon in the world with 8,000+ feet of elevation change during the race. That’s because the course is a 13.5% grade hill that you run up and down 65 times.
The training hasn’t been easy but it has pushed me to new limits I didn’t know I had, and I’m confident that I’ll learn some new limits and good lessons about myself when I’m on that hill.
The race is next week on Sept. 8th. On that day it’s me vs. me, and I can’t wait to get out on that hill and be uncomfortable.
I hope you all try something in the coming weeks that nudges you a little outside of your comfort zone.
I appreciate you all and hope you guys have a great weekend 💯
Cheers,
Carnes
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As always thanks for reading and if there’s a specific topic you’d like to hear more about just let me know. I’ll be sure to include some photos from the race in the article next month.
P.S. WVU ended up losing by 7 :/