Hopefully many of you have had the opportunity of seeing a giant sequoia. They are magnificent trees; tall, wide, majestic. According to the all-knowing Wikipedia the giant sequoia is the single largest tree in the world and the largest living thing by mass. Basically they're huge! A tree that can grow to be over 300 feet tall and have a circumference of 56 feet you would think would come from a huge seed. But another interesting fact about the giant sequoia is that it has one of the smallest seeds. One seed is .16-.20 inches long and .039 inches broad. That's pretty darned small. Think about that for just a second, how something so huge grew out of something so small.
I was thinking about this during my walk today, not specifically giant sequoias, but about how a thought or idea, a tiny one, can grow to become something large and important, either for the good or for the bad. When I wrote my last blog post a friend of mine, who had nothing but my best interests at heart, made a comment to me, "I'm afraid you might be over training." And later, "Don't hurt yourself." I am always touched and appreciative of people's concern and advice, it means the world to me that people care. But it planted a seed. A small one. But one that grew...
My workout started off great, I was nice and consistent and felt good. My plan was to do 60 laps of the park, which equals about 61.8K, close enough... I had moments of ups and downs, thoughts of, this is boring, when is Dave going to get here (he would meet me after he got done with work, I started about 3 hours before he got there), is it time to eat something yet, mostly mindless dribble. Dave got there and we had some nice chit chat and he told me about his day. I was solid through 30K, exactly on the pace I wanted. Then I started to ache. Not a lot, just the - I've been training a lot ache in my legs. My left leg felt a bit tight, but I had no pains. But then that little seed that was there started to grow; do I really need to do a full 60K? It's been a long few weeks, I could just stop at 40K. How important is this long one, maybe I could cut it short. Thoughts along that line. Then I started feeling the aches and pains even more, and the seed kept growing. I decided at 40K that I would regular walk a lap and see if that would help my legs loosen up.
As soon as I stopped my left leg rigged up. It got super tight. Painfully tight. Making me gimp tight. I decided to see if I could walk it out. I started regular walking and it felt better, but not great. The good news was after I did my easy lap my legs felt refreshed. I was very, very happy to learn that. But my left leg was still hurting. I tried stretching it and it wouldn't loosen. I regular walked another 4 laps, to end at 45 laps. I knew I was making the right decision because my leg was not happy.
But all that got me thinking about that seed. In this case the seed was not the reason I stopped, it was the pain in my leg, and I know thinking about being tired did not cause the tightness in my legs, but how often do we plant negative seeds in people's minds?
I loved to run when I was a kid. Track and Cross Country were natural things for me. My junior year of high school during the summer I went to a running camp. We did a lot of running. I had fun. One day we were adding up mileage and someone noticed that if I ran one more mile I would have the longest run of anyone there. So I trudged off and did another mile. At the end of the week the head of the camp said something to my parents that I believe has shaped the rest of my athletic career. He said, "She's not really fast, but she can go forever." Since then that's what I've believed, I don't have a lot of speed, but I can just keep going. It's what I knew about myself, it was who I was. It took a while, but then I started race walking long distances and the rest is history. In the last few years I have discovered that I do have some foot speed. Nothing spectacular, but I have moments where I really get moving. What if I had started developing that speed years ago? What if that coach had instead said, "boy, she can really go forever, if she works on her foot speed she could be an amazing athlete!"
How different of a seed would that have planted? What if my whole life I had believed I was fast AND good at distances? How many stories are there of people who never gave up? Who tried, and tried, and tried? How many times was Walt Disney rejected before he was accepted? He believed. Somewhere along the way someone planted a seed that he was able to nurture and grow.
What type of seeds do you plant? Both for yourself and others? Are you building others up? Are you building yourself up? Are you constantly telling people that they can accomplish things, or putting limits? I had an interesting conversation with an amazing walker from another country. We were talking about belief, both belief in yourself and belief coming from others like coaches. He said that he sometimes felt like his coach never really showed belief in him like some others on the team. No one was there telling him he COULD hit certain times and reach certain goals. We talked a lot about the importance of self belief, but also of others believing in you. In others planting seeds. Now he holds numerous national records and has qualified for the World Championships and you can tell he really believes in himself! I'm so happy for him!
If you find someone is planting negative seeds, get rid of them. Be smart, listen to advice. learn from everyone you can, but believe. If you don't think you can do it you won't.
I didn't get in my full 60K, but I feel I trained as smart as I possibly could. I learned I need to stretch a bit more than I have been. I learned that if I really need to a short walking break seems to refresh my legs, and I learned that I can eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at 100 mile race pace! So I count today as a success and hopefully with some attention to my leg and a little rest I'll be ready to bounce right back.
I'm going to bed and think about what positive seeds I can plant.
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