Insecure

I keep thinking about this adventure race training, and I'm having so many doubts. I haven't received a message from my other teammate in days, and I'm just sure he's going to tell me he wants to be on another team because I'm not going to be competitive enough. I'm fat, and I have a helluva long way to go to get in shape. I got sick. He's found someone who's done this before. It just seems like the next logical step in my insecure mind that he would want to dump me.

I'm sure a lot of that worry is my own self-doubts talking. I don't know how to kayak. I don't know how to mountain bike. I haven't ever really even run trails. Hell, the most I've ever run non-stop in my life is two miles. Two. That's not adventure race caliber running there. I'm a rookie in every sense of the word.

As I always do, I've immersed myself in research on this stuff. I've read articles, watched programs, visited web sites and signed up for mailing lists. I can't help but notice the great lack of message boards out there dedicated to adventure racing. That only leads me to one conclusion: everyone is out training. Here I am, sitting on my butt reading when everyone else who wants to race is running or biking or training in some way. As much as you might need to use your head in this sort of thing, I don't think I'm going to get by on my know-how. I have to be able to do-how.

One other thing all the research does is eat away at my confidence. I see how lots of people are crossovers from triathlon, biathlon, marathon, swimming and other endurance events. I haven't done any of that. I ran sprints in junior high track. I played volleyball in high school. I ran two miles a day in college. I did aerobics after that. I've been doing Tae-Bo. None of those qualify for any type of endurance sport whatsoever, and I wasn't even in competitive form anyway. It just seems like everyone else was made to do this sort of thing, and I feel like I am going against everything that I am to even be trying.

At this point, I can't say that's stopping me. I have a lot of fears and doubts because of it. I have visions of getting dumped by my team, even though I started the whole idea; meeting the third team member and then getting dumped because I'm so out of shape; and crowds of people laughing at me if I do make it to the competition. But I still want to do it. This is something I really want to do, something I've wanted to do ever since I saw adventure racing for the first time. And if I do get dumped by my team, I'll find another team. If I have to, I'll enter as a single. I don't care if I get laughed at. I don't care what anyone thinks anymore. It's something I want to do, no matter how stupid I look or how hard it's going to be or who thinks I shouldn't do it.

After that little personal pep talk, I feel like I should go run right now, but I can't. As much as I want to do it, I know I'd just be setting myself back in the health department. I'm not well. I'm still coughing. Running or even walking briskly is going to stir up all the gunk in my system and push me back rather than advance me. I have to keep telling myself that I'm doing the right thing by taking it easy and that I'll train that much more quickly when I wait until I'm well rather than pushing it when I'm not. But it's hard. I feel like it's all just slipping away as my body fights these germs and makes me whole again. Why did I have to get so sick so early in training? That 100% sucks.