Hi friends! Thank you for continuing to follow me on my 50K journey. Since my first post, I have received many positive and heartfelt responses from my staff and friends alike. From emails to stopping by my office, their kind words have inspired me and warmed my heart. I can’t describe the support I’ve felt. At the same time, this really added to the pressure! Now I know I have to finish. I don’t want to let anyone down. I feel like I’m running for them now too.
Last weekend I met with Matt and Erick to train. They had the lofty idea that we should run the entire 50K! I reluctantly agreed to do it but all I could think was who runs an entire 50K before the actual 50K? None of our training has been typical so we decided to go ahead and try. It turned out that Erick actually wasn’t feeling well that day so in the end we only completed 14 miles. That actually sparked another epiphany for me. When we first met, we thought 14 miles was a lot. I remember our first hikes together. I was sore the next day after 14 miles and now here we are saying, “We’ll only do 14.” That actually made me proud, realizing how much stronger my team and I have gotten. Here again lies another parallel to The Guidance Center. Our children begin therapy and then weeks and months into their healing process, they can look back and see how much stronger they’ve become. You don’t always notice the smaller steps of progress made along the way, but it is so important to look back and see how far you really have come.
That recent training also brought new challenges I hadn’t considered. In all previous runs, the creeks and trails have been dry. Now that it is rainy season, this time when we reached the creek crossing there were several inches of flowing water. Of course there’s no bridge. That would be too easy. There was also mud and the trail was slippery at times. That changes things! Now of course I think about El Nino. All I can say is that I am hoping for a dry race day.
Soon we’ll have to start tapering, cutting back how much and how frequently we run. We’re approaching our last big training before the actual race on February 6. It’s going to scare me a lot not to train because I’ve been so focused and dependent on it. It makes me nervous that if I stop training I’ll fail because I may not be as strong as I should be for race day. This also made me think of our children. Is it scary for them when they realize they’re starting to end therapy? That they’ll have to be reliant on themselves and the skills they learned throughout their time at The Guidance Center? When do you know you’re good enough? That’s a big question. I know our children leave The Guidance Center much stronger and more confident than when they started. I hope to take even just a little bit of their confidence and resiliency with me as I continue to train for this race.
I will keep you posted! Thank you again for sharing this journey with me!
Warmly,
Patricia Costales, LCSW
CEO