Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / #HURDLEMOMENT: Running My Fastest Mile EVER, A Recap

Transcript

#HURDLEMOMENT: Running My Fastest Mile EVER, A Recap · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

0:00
Speaker 1: Running reminds us that we can feel sometimes when we
0:05
Speaker 1: feel numb. It reminds us that we can do hard
0:09
Speaker 1: things when life feels hard, and it reminds us that
0:13
Speaker 1: each and every one of us have this beautiful, fucking
0:17
Speaker 1: opportunity to go after what it is that we want
0:20
Speaker 1: every single day on our own terms, regardless of anybody else. Hey,
0:42
Speaker 1: Hurdler's Emily and Badi here bringing you another installment of Hurdle.
0:47
Speaker 1: Moment from Hurdle, and this week a much requested episode.
0:53
Speaker 1: I am giving you all of my thoughts, all of
0:57
Speaker 1: my feelings from the mile time trial I ran last Friday.
1:05
Speaker 1: I can't believe I'm saying this, but my new personal
1:11
Speaker 1: best mile time is five minutes and fifty six seconds.
1:22
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
1:23
Speaker 1: I've been a little nervous and excited to record this
1:27
Speaker 1: recap because one of the most commented on episodes of
1:34
Speaker 1: Hurdle is my Chicago Marathon recap, and I think that's
1:39
Speaker 1: because I listened to it again recently myself. It never
1:43
Speaker 1: gets old me just sitting in my apartment listening to myself.
1:48
Speaker 1: I listened to it again recently and I recorded that
1:51
Speaker 1: episode like I'm going to record this episode which was
1:54
Speaker 1: just completely off of the cuff, talking to you honestly
1:58
Speaker 1: about my experience and and just being open and candid.
2:03
Speaker 1: And so hopefully this episode stands the tests of time
2:10
Speaker 1: like that one has. Before I get into the swing
2:13
Speaker 1: up things today, I do want to take a moment
2:16
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3:00
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3:15
Speaker 1: dollars off your purchase today of course, as always, please
3:19
Speaker 1: if you like what you're listening to, if you have
3:22
Speaker 1: something to say, if you want to share and tag
3:25
Speaker 1: the podcast, I'd love it. Tag me over at Hurdle
3:28
Speaker 1: Podcast and at Emily a Body, and while you're at it,
3:33
Speaker 1: rate and review the show in the iTunes store. It
3:36
Speaker 1: helps Hurdle get noticed and make its way up the charts.
3:40
Speaker 1: And also just it brings a little smile to my face.
3:43
Speaker 1: With that, it's time to talk about racing. Let's get
3:46
Speaker 1: to hurdling. If you were to tell me, like Emily
3:58
Speaker 1: circa two thousand and seven when she started running, that
4:02
Speaker 1: she would be excited about racing a mile, she would
4:08
Speaker 1: have given you like the biggest, blankest stare ever. When
4:14
Speaker 1: I started running, and I talked about that back in
4:16
Speaker 1: episode one if you haven't checked it out yet, I
4:20
Speaker 1: ran a half mile every single day and most days
4:26
Speaker 1: the summer that I started running. I absolutely dreaded that experience.
4:31
Speaker 1: Not only that, but it took me over fourteen minutes
4:36
Speaker 1: to run a half mile every single day. Emily back then,
4:42
Speaker 1: never in her wildest dreams would she have thought that
4:47
Speaker 1: racing or doing a time trial of said mile would
4:51
Speaker 1: bring her joy. She also never thought that she would
4:57
Speaker 1: be capable of running a half marathon or a marathon,
5:02
Speaker 1: or that running would be such an unbelievably huge.
5:06
Speaker 2: Part of her life.
5:07
Speaker 1: And to be honest, as I switched from talking about
5:10
Speaker 1: myself in the third person to bringing it back to
5:12
Speaker 1: the first person, I never really felt like I was
5:17
Speaker 1: set up for success at a young age to enjoy running.
5:21
Speaker 1: Like so much of my relationship with running has been
5:24
Speaker 1: reframing how I grew up with that relationship. I mean,
5:29
Speaker 1: growing up my brother bless him. Whenever we would get
5:32
Speaker 1: like in an argument, or he I would do something
5:35
Speaker 1: that would bother him. His way to tease me, because
5:38
Speaker 1: I was an overweight kid and teenager, would be to
5:41
Speaker 1: tell me to go run a mile. Now he was
5:44
Speaker 1: the track athlete. That was obviously his young boy way
5:48
Speaker 1: of like making fun of me for my weight. Let's
5:51
Speaker 1: not criticize my brother for his choices at this young age,
5:55
Speaker 1: but it was something that stuck with me forever because
5:59
Speaker 1: I felt as though at the time when he would
6:00
Speaker 1: tease me about this, that it was never going to
6:02
Speaker 1: be something ever that was in my wheelhouse. And I
6:05
Speaker 1: shared a story on Instagram the other day about an
6:09
Speaker 1: experience that I had shortly after the summer that I
6:11
Speaker 1: started running, and I wasn't really good at it yet,
6:14
Speaker 1: but I'd gotten to a point where I could run
6:17
Speaker 1: a mile. And I remember so specifically and afternoon that
6:20
Speaker 1: I went with my brother to Planet Fitness and we
6:22
Speaker 1: both hopped up on these two treadmills, and they're in
6:25
Speaker 1: front of like that wall of televisions, and only like
6:29
Speaker 1: four of the twelve televisions are working, and people are
6:34
Speaker 1: committing all sorts of different gym faux pause like all
6:38
Speaker 1: around us and talking on their phones loudly, you know,
6:41
Speaker 1: the drill. And so we both get up on the
6:43
Speaker 1: treadmills and we start running, and of course, like my
6:47
Speaker 1: pace is much slower than his, But that's not the
6:49
Speaker 1: point of the story here. I will never forget watching
6:53
Speaker 1: that treadmill, like the numbers on the treadmill click to
6:58
Speaker 1: one point, oh uh oh, And I pressed stop on
7:03
Speaker 1: the treadmill and the belt slowed down. I looked at
7:05
Speaker 1: my brother, who had no idea, like absolutely no idea
7:09
Speaker 1: how big of a moment this was for me. I
7:13
Speaker 1: looked at him, and I like inside and literally doing
7:16
Speaker 1: cartwheels and jumping jacks, and somersaults, and I'm so excited
7:19
Speaker 1: because I just ran a full freaking mile next to
7:24
Speaker 1: this person who always told me to go do it,
7:27
Speaker 1: and there I was, I was doing it, and uh yeah,
7:32
Speaker 1: I was like looking for any sort of recognition and
7:35
Speaker 1: he just like looked at me and shrugged his shoulders
7:37
Speaker 1: and told me that he was.
7:38
Speaker 2: Going to go to a different part of the gym.
7:42
Speaker 1: That mile on the treadmill that day, the mile that
7:45
Speaker 1: literally was like all of my adolescents coming up until
7:49
Speaker 1: this past Friday, was probably the most meaningful mile of
7:53
Speaker 1: my life, which is a bold statement, right because I
7:57
Speaker 1: have run a shit ton of miles. But that mile,
8:03
Speaker 1: like so many other stepping stones we have in our lives,
8:08
Speaker 1: was the game changer, just like those fourteen minute half
8:13
Speaker 1: miles from when I started running that first full eleven
8:18
Speaker 1: some odd minute mile that I ran inside of that
8:21
Speaker 1: planet fitness. If I had never done that single mile,
8:26
Speaker 1: I would never be in the place I am today
8:29
Speaker 1: to run a five fifty six. And it's hard to
8:34
Speaker 1: frame it that way, right, especially when, especially at the beginning,
8:37
Speaker 1: because everything feels like everest, everything feels hard, and you
8:41
Speaker 1: think to yourself, I could never do X or y.
8:44
Speaker 1: But if you don't put yourself in the place, in
8:49
Speaker 1: the position, if you don't get outside of your comfort
8:52
Speaker 1: zone to try, then you'll never know. Then you'll never
8:56
Speaker 1: get to where you want to be. So let me
8:58
Speaker 1: talk to you about how I got to this mile
9:01
Speaker 1: time trial situation. Last summer, I raced the Brooklyn Mile,
9:07
Speaker 1: and I did a lot of specific training for the
9:10
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Mile and fell short of my goal, coming in
9:14
Speaker 1: at six minutes and seven seconds, And that was really
9:20
Speaker 1: hard for me in retrospect when I think about how
9:22
Speaker 1: I felt after that race, because I felt really embarrassed.
9:26
Speaker 1: You know, like I'm not Beyonce, I don't have millions
9:30
Speaker 1: and millions of followers, but it's still like really embarrassing,
9:35
Speaker 1: so to speak, to fail publicly in such a way
9:39
Speaker 1: when you put out your big, scary goals and you
9:41
Speaker 1: have these big hopes and you think that, okay, like
9:45
Speaker 1: this is going to be the motivation I need to
9:47
Speaker 1: show up and like exceed all these expectations and do
9:50
Speaker 1: the damn thing. There were a lot of lessons in
9:54
Speaker 1: that failure. In that hurdle. It was the first time
9:57
Speaker 1: and sometime that I had gone out and truly raced
10:00
Speaker 1: a mile race. I got the opportunity to get used
10:03
Speaker 1: to how that would feel, to gain a better understanding
10:06
Speaker 1: of what it would be like in the first four
10:09
Speaker 1: hundred meters, the second four hundred meters, and so on
10:11
Speaker 1: and so forth, And those are learnings that I have
10:14
Speaker 1: been able to take with me ever since. Fast forward
10:18
Speaker 1: to now. I mean, I don't need to tell you
10:21
Speaker 1: that this year has been all sorts of difficult. I
10:26
Speaker 1: have spent so much of it here in this apartment
10:29
Speaker 1: thinking about so many things that I want from my
10:32
Speaker 1: personal life and what I dream of my life to
10:35
Speaker 1: be one day, to my running and health and fitness goals.
10:39
Speaker 1: And as an athlete, I've gone through a lot of
10:41
Speaker 1: different phases in this quarantine, to say the least. I mean,
10:45
Speaker 1: at the beginning was dealing with injuries, and I recorded
10:48
Speaker 1: a few episodes on that if you feel as though
10:51
Speaker 1: you yourself are struggling with an injury right now. I
10:55
Speaker 1: had to give up running for a little bit and
10:57
Speaker 1: focus on strength work and walking, and that was a
10:59
Speaker 1: mental battle. And then I picked up cycling as a result,
11:04
Speaker 1: and God Like, how grateful am I that I picked
11:08
Speaker 1: that up. Not only do I have two bikes, hanging
11:11
Speaker 1: inside of my apartment now. But I also really feel
11:16
Speaker 1: like cycling more, getting out on my bike. Adding in
11:20
Speaker 1: more cross training has been a game changer when it
11:23
Speaker 1: comes to how I feel when I run, how I
11:27
Speaker 1: feel on the track, And so in the recent months,
11:30
Speaker 1: I have felt really strong. I've been steadily adding in
11:36
Speaker 1: longer runs on the weekends and it feels really fulfilling
11:39
Speaker 1: and it brings me so much joy. I've been enjoying
11:42
Speaker 1: my socially distant track practices and trying out new speeds
11:47
Speaker 1: and getting more comfortable with this new level of uncomfortable.
11:51
Speaker 2: And it was about a month ago when a.
11:54
Speaker 1: Friend of mine and I chatted about the idea of
11:57
Speaker 1: putting together a time trial and we set a date, and,
12:02
Speaker 1: of course, because this is my life, about a week before,
12:07
Speaker 1: a week and a half before a proposed time trial date,
12:10
Speaker 1: I kicked my bed in my apartment and bruised my toe,
12:13
Speaker 1: and I had one of those moments where I was
12:15
Speaker 1: so scared that I was going to go back to
12:18
Speaker 1: square one, like I did at the beginning of quarantine.
12:20
Speaker 1: And if you've ever been injured, you can totally totally
12:22
Speaker 1: relate to that. It's just this big scary thing where
12:26
Speaker 1: you feel like the one thing that makes you feel
12:28
Speaker 1: sane and human is completely taken away from you.
12:30
Speaker 2: Good news, The toe is fine.
12:32
Speaker 1: I've talked about it on a few episodes now, so
12:34
Speaker 1: you're probably well versed in what's going home with my toe.
12:38
Speaker 1: But we pushed back the time trial one week and
12:41
Speaker 1: just like that we were gearing up, and so now
12:45
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you about the actual time trial. It
12:48
Speaker 1: was on a Friday morning at seven thirty. I the
12:52
Speaker 1: night before had a personal pasta party of rigatoni and
12:55
Speaker 1: chicken parmesan.
12:57
Speaker 2: I woke up.
12:59
Speaker 1: On Friday at around six I had a piece of
13:04
Speaker 1: peanut butter and jelly toast. I rode my bike downtown
13:09
Speaker 1: as a warm up. It's about a thirty minute super
13:12
Speaker 1: casual bike ride, and then jogged, so to speak, two
13:18
Speaker 1: laps around the track, so that's the warm up for
13:22
Speaker 1: the mile. I ran it alongside one of my good friends,
13:26
Speaker 1: and we also had another friend pace the mile at
13:30
Speaker 1: a strict six minute pace, so there was no intention
13:35
Speaker 1: for any sort of negative split or anything like that.
13:38
Speaker 1: He was just there to be the rabbit at six
13:41
Speaker 1: minutes and that was it. We start running the mile
13:46
Speaker 1: and someone asked in the questions like, what were you
13:49
Speaker 1: thinking right before you started? I think before any big thing,
13:53
Speaker 1: whether it's a job interview, or going on a date
13:57
Speaker 1: or running a fast mile, you're never ever, ever going
14:02
Speaker 1: to feel like you are one hundred percent ready to
14:04
Speaker 1: do this big thing. But that's part of the fun
14:07
Speaker 1: of it, right, that excitement. It means that you care.
14:11
Speaker 1: And so before I pressed the top right button on
14:15
Speaker 1: my Garmin, I thought to myself, like, I guess we're
14:20
Speaker 1: gonna fucking do this, But I wasn't, like I've got
14:25
Speaker 1: this in the bag. And I think that's what's the
14:28
Speaker 1: best part about it, all right. It's like the butterflies
14:31
Speaker 1: that you get right before that moment where you're about
14:34
Speaker 1: to see what you're really capable of.
14:36
Speaker 2: So I pressed the top right button and we're off.
14:40
Speaker 1: And the first four hundred felt as though I was
14:45
Speaker 1: out for a jog. Which it's silly to say that
14:48
Speaker 1: out loud, I know, but I realized very quickly in
14:52
Speaker 1: this race that having a pacer is a complete complete
14:56
Speaker 1: game changer, because all too often we always go out
15:00
Speaker 1: too fast, which is something that I was definitely nervous
15:03
Speaker 1: of in Chicago when my first few miles were hovering
15:09
Speaker 1: under and around the eight minute mark. The difference for
15:13
Speaker 1: me in Chicago was that having run seven marathons before that,
15:20
Speaker 1: I knew how it felt to feel highly in control.
15:25
Speaker 1: I was moving faster than normal, but I felt like
15:29
Speaker 1: what I was doing was completely in my wheelhouse. The
15:33
Speaker 1: marathon is meant to be not a ten out of
15:38
Speaker 1: ten on the rate of perceived exertion scale the mile, However,
15:43
Speaker 1: You're supposed to be in a place where you feel
15:47
Speaker 1: like you are truly maxing out, and trust me, I
15:51
Speaker 1: definitely got there. So the first lap really felt like
15:54
Speaker 1: a joga, felt manageable. The second lap felt like we
15:57
Speaker 1: were settling into this pace, still manageable. The third lap
16:01
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, you're halfway done. We're well on our way.
16:04
Speaker 1: It definitely feels challenging, but I'm not feeling like in
16:08
Speaker 1: my legs that I'm not capable of what's happening here.
16:12
Speaker 1: I am starting to feel labored in my breathing. The
16:16
Speaker 1: fourth lap, like the adrenaline is there, the excitement is there,
16:19
Speaker 1: but this is when the fatigue is like really starting
16:21
Speaker 1: to settle in in my chest. I get past the
16:24
Speaker 1: first two hundred meters of the final four hundred meters lap,
16:28
Speaker 1: and as I'm getting to that two hundred meter left
16:31
Speaker 1: to go mark, my friends are cheering on the side,
16:35
Speaker 1: and I'm starting to weeze so loudly that they think
16:38
Speaker 1: that I am crying in my bail, and so one
16:42
Speaker 1: of my friends starts sprinting alongside next to me, and
16:47
Speaker 1: our pacer is yelling, go, go, go, and my friend
16:51
Speaker 1: Ashley like takes off a couple of seconds ahead of me,
16:54
Speaker 1: and I literally I close my eyes and I am
16:58
Speaker 1: just thinking to myself, like, you can do this, you
17:01
Speaker 1: can do this. You didn't come this far to only
17:03
Speaker 1: come this far. You didn't come this far to only
17:05
Speaker 1: come this far. And I'm pushing and I'm pushing, and
17:07
Speaker 1: I just literally am running for at least four seconds
17:11
Speaker 1: with my eyes closed, telling myself that I can do this.
17:15
Speaker 2: I can do anything.
17:16
Speaker 1: For the next five freaking seconds, I open my eyes
17:20
Speaker 1: and I'm getting closer and closer to that finish line
17:23
Speaker 1: and I cross it and I literally fall over to
17:27
Speaker 1: the ground as I press stop on my garment. In
17:31
Speaker 1: that moment when I follow the ground, I have no
17:33
Speaker 1: idea if I've actually done it, but I do hear
17:36
Speaker 1: a lot of cheering, so it's promising, and I instantly
17:41
Speaker 1: start crying before I even know truly what even just
17:45
Speaker 1: happened or how much time that took me, because I
17:48
Speaker 1: am so overwhelmed thinking of the girl and Planet Fitness.
17:58
Speaker 1: I'm so overwhelmed thinking about the fact that, like I
18:02
Speaker 1: was taunted for not being able to run a mile
18:05
Speaker 1: at all for so fucking long. And I look up
18:11
Speaker 1: and tears are streaming down my face and ash my friend.
18:15
Speaker 1: She comes over to me and I'm like, did we
18:17
Speaker 1: do it? And she was like, girl, we did it.
18:21
Speaker 1: Sitting here shaking my head doesn't really convey to you
18:23
Speaker 1: like how I feel right now, but really, just that
18:26
Speaker 1: experience it made me feel so grateful, especially in this
18:28
Speaker 1: year that just has felt like so many times like
18:32
Speaker 1: I wasn't good enough or I couldn't do what I
18:34
Speaker 1: wanted to do. Everything has felt complicated and nothing has
18:37
Speaker 1: felt easy. And this was something I wanted so badly
18:40
Speaker 1: and I was the only thing that I needed to
18:43
Speaker 1: get it done, and that felt so fucking good. It
18:46
Speaker 1: felt so good to believe in myself, to find that
18:50
Speaker 1: place of self belief and understand that with hard work,
18:54
Speaker 1: I can do hard things. And I think what's really
18:58
Speaker 1: special about this opportunity is just like it makes me
19:03
Speaker 1: excited to want more for the first time in a
19:05
Speaker 1: long time. I'm excited for the first time in a
19:10
Speaker 1: long time, maybe since crossing that Chicago line. You know,
19:15
Speaker 1: I feel as though I have a limitless potential in
19:19
Speaker 1: a way that so many of us have not felt
19:22
Speaker 1: allowed to feel this year. I want to remember that feeling.
19:26
Speaker 1: I want to remember this feeling. I want to feel
19:30
Speaker 1: this feeling more, you know. And that's why running is
19:34
Speaker 1: a great thing for me and for so many of you,
19:37
Speaker 1: is because it reminds us that we can feel sometimes
19:42
Speaker 1: when we feel numb. It reminds us that we can
19:45
Speaker 1: do hard things when life feels hard, and it reminds
19:50
Speaker 1: us that each and every one of us have this beautiful,
19:54
Speaker 1: fucking opportunity to go after what it is that we
19:56
Speaker 1: want every single day on our own terms, regardless of
20:02
Speaker 1: the weather, regardless of anybody else. That mile was something
20:08
Speaker 1: really special, And to be honest, I'd be lying if
20:11
Speaker 1: I didn't tell you that. I think I've got faster
20:13
Speaker 1: times than me But for now, I'll take it and
20:18
Speaker 1: I'll run with it. I want to know, are you
20:22
Speaker 1: going to do a mile trial? What do you got
20:24
Speaker 1: going on? Keeping the loop on your goals, keeping the
20:27
Speaker 1: loop on your lives, And thank you if you made
20:31
Speaker 1: it this far for listening to me recap something that
20:34
Speaker 1: meant the damn world to me at Emily A Body
20:39
Speaker 1: at Hurdle podcast Another Hurdle Conquered.
20:44
Speaker 2: Catch you guys next time