Pride or acknowledging your greatness

It's not always easy having confidence in your abilities and even harder to have pride in them. I get asked pretty often why I run and have some good answers depending on the crowd. What I still have a difficult time with is when people are impressed by what I do. All I do is put one foot in front of the other; I just do it longer than some people and cover a few more miles. In all honestly, this type of attention and praise makes me really self conscious and slightly embarrassed. Being in front of groups is never something I've struggled with when it comes to presenting or giving speeches. When the center of attention is about me specifically it is really hard to put off that same air of confidence.

I don't win races, I don't win my age group (unless it's a 5k in Bentonville Arkansas), and, as with my 50 miler last year, sometimes I just try to get to the end in enough pieces to count.

Catt and I post Quad Rock. I'm wearing one pant leg, one shirt arm, one shoe, and my knee is bleeding...Enough pieces to count says my finisher mug.

Nothing that I do as a runner will show up in my college alumni magazine or get me a running sponsorship. So perhaps it's uncomfortable for me to receive praise when I don't feel like I've done any of the things that warrant it.

We are our own harshest critics and I was reminded of that this past weekend in Vegas. Trouble in Vegas is a low stress, have fun, be silly, drink beer, and get no sleep tournament for the post college teams. It's pretty much the opposite of playing at Nationals, Fright Flight might be the only tournament more opposite than that. So again, this is a tournament that doesn't matter with teammates who put more emphasis on funny groupme posts and eating ground fruit than winning all the games. So it's silly that in one of our games I got down on myself. I dropped two discs in the endzone. Which is uncharacteristic of me. I was so mad at myself. I had to take time on the sideline and throw/catch with a teammate to reset. But my frustration did not go unnoticed by one of my teammates. So now I was in a position on the sideline having to listen to someone tell me, remind me, that I'm a great player and to get out of my head.

Why is it so hard for us to acknowledge our greatness when things go right? Why is it so important for us to acknowledge it when things go wrong?

These knuckleheads won a spikeball set and your hearts!

I feel fortunate for having a new friend/teammate remind me of the bigger picture of my role on the field. It's so important to acknowledge your greatness when things are going horrible in ultimate for two reasons. First: if your opponent sees you down and mentally out of the play that's a big tasty weakness to exploit. Second: if your team sees you down and mentally out they worry about you and not about the right here right now moment of the game. Two drops over the course of two days, 9 games, hundreds of points, cases of beer, is actually pretty good. We won the tournament. Not despite the fact that I dropped two discs, but because I was a fully engaged member of my team. You can't be perfect, but you can be your fabulous self. It's hard to accept praise and harder to do it when you feel like you don't deserve it, but it's so important to acknowledge your greatness and allow others to do the same.

This tournament helped me remember the bigger picture of my role in running and races. A lot of ultra running, especially getting to the finish line, is convincing yourself that you can do it. Convincing your legs, feet, head, arms, stomach, that everything is ok and you just need to keep moving. Unlike ultimate I have no opponent I'm trying to outwit or a team I'm trying to support. I am the opponent and I am the team. I can't let me see a gap to exploit to not keep going. I can't let me see doubt. It's ok for people to be excited, amazed, and impressed by what I do. It's not easy and I work hard to accomplish my goals.

I will still feel uncomfortable being the center of attention and hearing someone tell me how awesome/amazing/crazy it is to run. I come from the land of powder milk biscuits; they help shy people get up and do what needs to be done. But I'm working on being more confident and proud of myself and I can see that only benefiting me in the long run.

Wow you run ultra marathons? Damn right I do, I finish them to, usually in one piece.