All out

When I was in high school I ran. I was a sprinter, and I loved it. The key to a good sprint is to go all out, past the finish line. If you slow down before the finish line, you will inevitably be passed and lose the race. Last year I accomplished a longtime goal and ran the bolder Boulder. If you are familiar with the race, you know that it is anything but a sprint. It's a ten kilometer race, that's more than six miles. My only goal was to jog the whole thing, and I did just that. I was surrounded by thousands of people yet I was completely alone. It was exhausting and exhilarating, but some of the same rules I learned in high school still applied during this long distance run. Although it didn't matter to anyone else, it mattered to me that I ran all out past the finish line. At this point in my life it wasn't about winning the race, but about giving all I could, and knowing that I gave my all. It could have been easy to dwell on all those that ran the bolder Boulder so much faster than I did. Instead, I tried to focus on what I had accomplished, how hard I had trained and worked to be able to run the whole ten kilometers

It has been a weird few days emotionally. I am counting down to finals. In just over one week I will finish my first semester back to school. It seems to be an odd combination of decompression, depression, and exhaustion.  I've been so crazy busy for so long that as things wind down it's easy to want to walk (or crawl) through the finals finish line. I know much of what I'm feeling is exhaustion, but I know that there is an element of fear as well. Finals are important, they are literally about proving all you've learned, and I can't help but worry that all I've done may not be enough.  If I have learned anything this semester it is this;  I am capable of much more than I often believe. I can't say that I'm running a sprint, I know that school is more of a long distance kind of thing, but my life experiences tell me that if I can hold out for just a little longer, and move past the finish line- past my fears, I won't have any regrets, no matter what grades I achieve.