goin' on a bear hunt...

...okay, not really. But these were the lyrics that ran through my mind today as I thought about track practice tonight. If y'all have followed my blog, you know my love/hate relationship with track. It's completely ridiculous, I know. It has nothing to do with weather or my teammates or Coach Logan or even running itself. It's this silly pressure that I put on myself to beat a previous time or not be the last one or not look like a total fool...or something. It's funny because in no other practice do I feel like this. I'm never the fastest in any of the three sports that we do so I should be used to it! I love hill workouts. I even like our long runs. I always feel inadequate in spin class and on long rides...although both of those have gotten A LOT better. Swimming just feels good and even though it's centered around time intervals sometimes, too, I just don't feel the same pressure. See what I mean - totally ridiculous!
Anyway, I got to a really good place with track after my running focus last winter. Except for one small freak out before mile repeats last spring, I actually looked forward to track practice and arrived with a smile on my face and a good attitude. All through CDA training it was part of my normal practice schedule and it didn't bother me one bit. But CDA training was nearly 4 weeks ago and I probably stopped going to track (because of our taper) about 5 or 6 weeks ago.
ETG + a long break from track = fear, dread, anxiety...SILLINESS. But very real all the same. So I told myself this week that I absolutely had to go to track practice. And that's where the song lyrics come in.

Goin' on a bear hunt
Gonna catch a big one...I'm not afraid
What's that up ahead...
A field! (a lake! a mud puddle! a tree! a cave!)
Can't go around it, can't go under it, can't go over it, gotta go through it...

You get the idea...
The main point being gotta go through it. And that's what I needed to do with track practice tonight. So I did. And I survived. And it wasn't really all that bad. And I felt better when I left than I did when I arrived.
And, well, that's a good reminder for life...and bear hunts...and track practice...or whatever it is that scares you. You just have to go through it sometimes. Sure, you can try to go around it, but it never goes away if you do that. I guess we always hope that our pastimes and our hobbies and our work or just whatever we do in our lives teach us more about life. Check. Life lesson reinforced by track practice. Again.