This story is the second part in a four-part series about our Halfsy Hero Jenn Schroeder. Our series will follow Jenn and three other heroes as they train for the 2018 Good Life Halfsy.
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“I’m not a morning person, but in Arizona, I had to be. It’s been so hot that if I wait, it would be dangerous to try.”
Jenn Schroeder has found herself millions of steps away from the finish line this week, but she hasn’t let her travel schedule distract her from her mission, as easy as it would be to do so.
“We flew to Arizona and spent some time with family, then drove to California from there. We’ve been driving back for 2 days. It was just family, comfort foods and heat. I grabbed trail mix, and a few of the stops had fresh fruit so I’d grab an apple. It’s harder not to grab those not-so-good snacks once you’re in a gas station, but I had a lot of fruit and almonds to get me by. I’m sick of eating, though. That long in a car, that’s all there is to do. Snack and sit.”
While sitting for hours on end sounds restful, it actually leads to feelings of lethargy, poor circulation, and fatigue. Rather than treat these feelings with a nap, Jenn came prepared with a jump rope and resistance bands.
“I knew there would be a little bit of a recovery period after having a wisdom tooth pulled, so I tried to kind of compound my time I would be out of commission. Schedule my break and travel and dental work all together so that I would have one ‘break’ instead of 4 setbacks.”
And setbacks seem to be the name of the game about this time. At this point in training and preparation, many competitors hit a proverbial wall and the hurdles seem to start adding up. You feel like you’ve been training for so long, only to realize the race is still so far away. Schedules are changing lives are shifting, and you may not feel like your pace is where it “should” be yet. It seems that the easiest thing to do is backburner training.
This far out, many racers begin to question their own work ethic. It’s easy to just stop and ask yourself… why am I even doing this? Jenn keeps an answer in her holster:
“It’s like strength training or weight loss. You don’t see the scale moving and the weights are still too heavy, but you just don’t give up. Then you notice your clothes fit differently. You’re less sore.”
You can’t always see the way your hard work is changing your body, mind, and life, but you’re always changing. Controlling the direction of that change is entirely up to you.
“When you’re running, you just want to quit. But you keep taking steps thinking you’ll stop at the end of this mile, just a few steps away. Then you try to go farther next time. Then you get to this point where you realize you still have energy, you can keep going, and so you do.”
Jenn has come so far already, and one step at a time, she’s headed toward a powerful future.
Check back for Halfsy Heroes, and to read the next installment of Jenn’s story!