I stood at the bottom of the mountain, penned in a box with 150 other participants, thinking of my typical Saturday routine. Sleep in a little, maybe meditate, then sit down with a fresh cup of coffee to write while Rooney sleeps on my feet. 

Today, instead of sipping hot coffee, I was staring disbelievingly at the side of the mountain that I was about run as part of the 2018 Tough Mudder Half. A mountain that in winter, is reserved for skiing.

Down.

Not running up.

So that’s a hill. And those specs are people…

All around me people were fidgeting. Some were jumping up and down, others were cracking their necks, while a select few others were screaming.

Like just randomly screaming.

Loudly. 

I stood, cemented in place, unable to shut off the steady stream of sarcasm rolling through my mind.

I looked at my teammate Lauren. 

“I’m not doing this next year,” I said.

“Yes I know. You said that last year, so I’ll remind you that you told me that when we’re standing in line for next year’s race.” 

We both laughed. 

I stopped laughing abruptly. 

“Yeah, that’s totally going to happen again isn’t it?” I asked.

“Yup,” she said. “Totally.”

*****

Next thing I know, we’re schlepping our way up the side of the mountain and I’m dishing out a healthy stream of bad one-liners. 

“Why would I want to be at home drinking coffee and watching College Game Day?” I asked to no one in particular. A guy who was doing his 100th race swept past. 

“Because this is so much more fun!” 

“Yes,” I said. “Yes fun. That’s the word I was searching for right there. Thank you.”

I’m not always proud of my sarcasm, because I know it bumps up pretty hard against negativity. I toe that line of negativity and often cross it, and I crossed it a lot more on Saturday than I wish I had.

Humor is how I cope. And Saturday’s course provided a lot of opportunities to work on coping skills. This was by far the most difficult course I’d ever attempted.

Towards the end of the run, once we had sponges for shoes and mud in places you never thought mud could go, we came around a corner to another mountain. But this one was too steep for walking. We had to scale the mountain on all fours. 

I’d like you to take a moment to recall the famous Chevy Chase tirade about a happy family from the movie Christmas vacation. 

Then add another minute of expletives.

That’s roughly what came out of my mouth at the bottom of that mountain - sans the Santa hat.

There was no way around this obstacle. Literally, the only way out was up. So all of us, many of whom shared my thoughts, threw ourselves into the mountain and just started climbing. 

Half-way up the mountain, I lost my footing. Up to that point I’d been methodically choosing my footholds and hand holds, moving quickly, not giving myself enough time to think.

But suddenly, I had nowhere to put my foot or my hands. I looked down. 

If you do this course next year, let me give you some casual advice when you arrive at this stage of the race. 

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS SACRED DO NOT LOOK DOWN. 

So then I looked up. And I’d like to take a moment here to add a second piece of advice. 

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS SACRED DO NOT LOOK UP. 

Not gonna lie - I kind of panicked a little. (I don’t think I peed my pants, but it was hard to tell, since I was drenched.)

But here is what’s cool about these kind of races. I said I was stuck, and the woman behind me put her hand up for me to step on it. So I did. And I was able to get my footing again, and after a few minutes, I could see flags in the distance and hear my teammates cheering me on at the top. 

(When people cheer for me in sports, they can’t help but call me Kimmie, because they need that extra syllable. And for some reason, in that context, I find the name Kimmie oddly comforting).

Once I hit level ground and could stand up, I leaned up against a tree to catch my breath. I looked out at the view. I looked down at the others still climbing. 

And in that moment, I stumbled straight into gratitude. 

Gratitude that I have a body that allows me to scale a mountain. Gratitude that I didn’t have to go it alone. Gratitude for my health. Gratitude for a growing sense of camaraderie with my teammates, many of whom I had the good fortune of getting to know a little better on Saturday.

At the end of the night, a shower never felt so good. Sweatpants never felt so warm. And my bed never felt so soft. And I was grateful for all of those comforts.

But I’m not doing this next year….

Originally this post was titled strategies for dealing with injuries. 

But I'm highly caffeinated and pissed off today. 

Today's workout includes screaming with frustration, icing my foot, journaling, and a ton of upper body. No feet required for chin ups.

On Sunday, I strapped my running shoes on and turned in my first long run on the way to training for the San Diego marathon. The marathon is my great white whale.*

Completing a marathon is on my bucket list and so in February I took the plunge and signed up to take a 26.2 mile foot tour of San Diego. I don’t run the way I did in my twenties and early thirties, when I logged 30, 40 and 50 miles per week and couldn’t be dragged into strength training.

In fact, I remember going into the weight room at Penn State Altoona with a friend of mine and struggling through two ugly reps of the bench press with a 45 pound bar. 

It practically pinned me.

I felt weak, inadequate, and completely out of my league. It would be another eight years before I went into a weight room and didn’t head straight for the treadmill.

Now that I include plenty of strength training in my workouts, I feel like I am better prepared to have a balanced approach to my marathon training.

(Meanwhile, back at Justice League headquarters...)

This past Sunday, I headed out on the country roads near my house and as I jogged past the farms and along the river I was reminded of why I fell in love with running in the first place. It’s meditative. It’s peaceful. It’s cathartic. 

I got home after 7 miles and felt great. My only goal with the marathon and training is to stay healthy. 

Less than 24 hours later, my right foot started to hurt. By Monday night I could barely put weight on it. By Tuesday I was limping around the gym floor spitting nails and cursing my body. 

I could have put my fist through a wall. 

I don’t know if the phrase is unique to Western Pennsylvania, but “I ain’t no spring chicken no more.” I get that. I’m not old. But I’m not young. And my body is coming to collect on every check I wrote in my teens, twenties and thirties. 

And every time I get a nagging injury my self-esteem takes a hit, I become petrified of re-injuring whatever body part has given up on me this time, and I get depressed. Exercise is my main form of managing my depression and when I can’t workout, it’s not good for me.

Not to mention we're running a challenge at the gym right now and I have a team full of clients I'm leading and I want to lead by example. My example is just going to have to be different for a few days. 

The great thing about aging though, is the wisdom that comes with it. As frustrated as I am right now, I have some go to strategies for getting me through. 

1. Writing

I write blogs now, but for years I journaled. Writing helps me process life events, make sense of how I feel and what I’m thinking and gives me a chance to really get my emotions out. Today’s journal entry looks something like this:

^%$%$*&^&$&*&*(%^%$%$#$^&^^$#^(*

Arrrrgggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2. Workout around the injury

I don’t know how long I’ll be limping around on one foot, but I’m obviously not going to put in four miles today. I am, however, going to set a timer for 15 minutes and deadlift my face off. Almost without fail, there is something you can do to work out around an injury. And in the past few months, I’ve seen clients come in with a broken leg, sprained knee, and eight weeks out of a double hip replacement to get in a workout. 

I’ve also seen clients come in and workout while going through chemotherapy. 

There is always something you can do. 

3. Stay connected

We encourage all of our clients to continue coming to the gym despite injuries. Even if they only get on a foam roller or do some light stretching, the community connection can go a long way in keeping your spirits up. When I was a college coach, injured athletes were never excused from practice. Social connection is critical, especially at times when we really don’t feel like it. 

I know the word tribe gets thrown around a lot these days, but I can promise you, I’m leaning heavy on my tribe right now as I negotiate this injury.

I often tell new clients that we have very few truly healthy people with whom we work. Almost without fail, we have some nagging injury that crops up from time to time. That includes us coaches. And not just the ones over 30. We all deal with injury at some form or another. 

Lean on your tribe. Ask a coach what you can do. Let yourself be emotional. But don't give up on yourself. 

*Please tell me you all know the reference to the great white whale...

It was 1986 and our gym teacher Mr. Stock, with his polyester track pants and polo shirt marched us from the elementary school, down the hill to the high school track. 

He announced that Ronald Reagan was personally interested in how long it would take each of us to run four laps around the track. As it turned out, President Reagan cared deeply about how many sit-ups I could do, whether or not I could climb a rope, and how far I could climb up the ladder in the gym before I became paralyzed with fear. (Not very far as it turns out.)

Sometimes it's good to mix humor in with your mantra. 

A kid named Danny Beyer ran those four laps in six minutes while the rest of us alternated between walking, jogging, holding the stitch in our sides, and sobbing in the middle of the track. 

I don’t remember exactly what my eight-year old self-talk was - but I imagine it was some version of: this sucks this sucks this sucks this sucks and why the hell does President Reagan care how fast I can run when we’ve never met? 

A few years later when I took up cross country, somewhat willingly, and had learned the full spectrum of swear words on the school bus, it was a much different soundtrack playing in my mind, but the tune was similar.

What the hell was I thinking? Why did I sign up for this? It’s hot. My side hurts. Running is stupid. This sucks. Math class sucks too. Everything sucks. 

The voice in our heads is very convincing, and I don’t know about you, but it's rarely Morgan Freeman offering words of wisdom. My inner voice favors sarcasm, and I often find myself spouting off comments like “I want to put my face in a blender” or “I’ll be rocking back in forth in the corner if you need me.”

For some of us, it's not sarcasm. It's flat out cruelty. We talk to ourselves in ways we would never talk to another person.

"I can't do this. I'm so weak. Why didn't I train harder? I can't do that hill."

My negative inner voice is one of the reasons I've turned to mantras. 

Not only during my long runs but on days when my thoughts are racing a million miles an hour and I need to jam a stick in the wheel to make them stop, mantras have helped.

Lately, I've used “mind like water, body like a mountain” during my days. When you drop a stone in still water, it ripples for a few seconds, and then the water settles again. A mind like water absorbs whatever is happening externally and then settles back into the present. I struggle to let things go and stay present, and this mantra is my reminder.  

On my longer runs when I have plenty of time to ruminate I’ve settled on the phrase, I am strong, I am capable. It's easy to get lost in the discomfort of running or training, and this phrase helps me remember where I came from.

I pass this along to a client who was training for a long bike ride, and she created her own mantra. "I am strong, I am capable, and I am f---ing pretty." Because humor helps too.  

One of my favorite phrases came from a book I read years ago called Running Within - where the writer suggested the mantra of “health is me, I’m injury free” when you’re on a run and a nagging pain starts creeping up on you. 

It sounds a little hokey, but when you've got an injury, it's difficult to focus on anything else. This little phrase can help shift your attention away from the pain. 

It can be so easy to let our minds wander and focus on the suffering - and for many of us - exercise can feel like a form of necessary suffering. It’s something we know will make us feel better afterward, but for many, the actual process of training isn't always pleasant.

Finding a phrase that you can return to when you are having an especially trying day or difficult workout can be helpful in putting your mind and thoughts in a better place throughout the workout.

Remember that you are good.

You are deserving of love and kindness and compassion.