What’s your high, low, and lesson?

By Elizabeth Carey for DyeStat

Laura Duffy Photos

As we hurtle towards the end of time-warped 2020, let’s take a look back. 

I’ve been asking my athletes to do this before we leap headfirst into a new year, before we plan ahead, let alone hang our hopes on the future’s promise. I ask: What was a high? A low? A lesson? 

This simple exercise invites us to reflect on the year (or a season or any timeframe, however blurry). It’s an opportunity to look at a chapter in an athlete’s journey, including but not limited to accomplishments like PRs and setbacks like injuries, with as much context as needed. It’s an opportunity to identifying learnings, which lays a strong foundation for goal-setting, as Bowerman Youth Track Club coach Tammie Bennett said on a Women’s Running Coaches Collective call this week.

In 2020, our collective highs, lows, and lessons seem stark. Especially the lows, inseparable from athletics and incalculable yet approximated by statistics: A global pandemic with 377,000 deaths above normal in the U.S.; 8 million Americans falling below the poverty line since the summer; 54 million facing food insecurity in the US; 5 million acres burned across the West Coast; 40 percent of U.S. adults reporting mental health or substance abuse issues this summer. 

And, yes, competition postponed, canceled, rescheduled — practice, too. Add to that watching a patchwork of realities play out online, and maybe feeling FOMO and gas-lit for it.

Our highs? A running boom; records set at all levels from high school to pros, including on the track, road, and trail; athlete advocacy online and in real life; a surge in the movement to confront systematic racism; historic voter participation, the highest in a century; a swell of mutual aid; athletes connecting online for virtual championships and for kudos on Strava. And infinite little triumphs, like getting out the door for a run when existence feels doomed but you wonder if fresh air may make you feel better, or doing burpees in your living room, or resting because that was what your body and mind called for.  

This exercise works for coaches and recreational yoggers, too. As someone insulated by many layers of privilege, my personal lows and highs this year redefined what actually matters. (It’s the real stuff, not a race. It’s the fun stuff, like joking around. It’s the heavy stuff that in the before-times I’d run from.) But I’m lucky. This year, I got to run, to ponder the real, heavy stuff; to coach, spaced out and masked, in real life; to learn from leaders like the Running Industry Diversity Coalition; to dedicate miles and more to causes like Black Voters Matter and Rising Hearts; to see a book stamped with my name published in the wild world; to witness resilience and strength and freshmen learning C skips. 

These highs carried me to a lesson: embrace uncertainty. 

How lucky so many of us have been to take seasons and years and Olympic cycles for granted. How lucky we have been, to toe a line, to train with buddies, to bemoan heat sheets and stinky buses, to slap hands with a competitor after a meet. To snot rocket and spit with impunity. To cheer loudly together. To feel the presence of community beyond a grainy screen of blacked-out squares. To look into an athlete or teammate’s eyes and see, simultaneously, them crack a smile. 

Actually, embracing uncertainty is the same lesson as always: Be present. Be open, be grateful, be brave.

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Elizabeth Carey (https://elizabethwcarey.com/) is a writer and running coach based in Seattle, Washington. Her first book, GIRLS RUNNING, co-authored with Melody Fairchild, is available at your local book store and here: https://shop.aer.io/GirlsRunning/p/Girls_Running_All_You_Need_to_Strive_Thrive_and_Run_Your_Best/9781948007184-9934.