Hitting the Wall...

10:49 AM Elizabeth Seckman 2 Comments

Nothing is more depressing than watching a homesick kindergartener get back into the swing of school on a cold dreary Monday.  Poor little critter clutching the door, red eyed, and snotty nosed...you are about to learn a harsh lesson...Mom's just going to get out of the car, peel your fingers off the handle, and make you go inside.

Because...as much as it sucks...as much as it makes the tummy ache to leave the comforts and joys of home for the florescent lights and laminated  tables of school...it must be done.

Welcome to reality. Grab your Barbie back pack, pull up your big girl pants, and go get some education.

And I suppose that's a lesson for us all.  

I remember being that girl who really DID. NOT. WANT. TO. GO. TO. SCHOOL.

PERIOD.

It wasn't that school was so awful, I just had a difficult time with transitions. I'm still not the kind of gal who switches course midstream without some mental gear grinding. But now I am older and wiser (I hear the giggles...bite me) and know how to get myself to move my feet in the direction they have to go whether I like it or not. 

It's a lesson I credit to sports. 

Rewind twenty some years. I was an athlete (now you may giggle...okay, so I practiced with the team and kept the bench toasty)...but still I was, by all technical definitions, an athlete. I showed up every August with my tennis shoes on, ready to sweat (okay, truth be told...I was out to sweat as little as I had to, and in hind sight, this was probably the reason I was a permanent fixture on the bench). 

Anyhow...those first days stunk. Our coach called this torture conditioning. We would run till we hurt, then run a little more. At the end of practice we would do timed wind sprints. Now, at each end of our gym were the old wooden pull out bleachers and during practice they would be shoved against the wall. So they made a wooden wall with slits through them that made perfect finger holds. So here we were, trying to come in under the time limit, pedaling our legs as fast as they'd go, flying into the homestretch and bam...bam...bam...bodies would hit the wall. And it felt so good to slip the fingers through those ledges and just hang as your lungs screamed in protest. But my coach, who was part philosopher, part medic, would blow her freaking whistle and yell, "Ladies, off the wall! Walk it off.  Body straight. Hands behind your neck and breathe...deep breath in, slow breath out...walk it off ladies...walk it off."

I remember thinking I'd just as soon wrap the whistle around her neck, but instead I walked. And had to admit, she was right. Clutching the wall and crying didn't help...to be sure...it only made matters worse. And eventually, after a couple of weeks, the body (and the resistant little mind) did become conditioned and you forgot that you ever smacked the wall.

That's my advice on an icky Monday...when you hit the wall, walk it off.

Oh, yeah...and breathe. Cause if you're breathing...you're alive...and as long as you're alive, you might as well live.

Yep, that's me in 1988...it's an action shot!