Running: Is This The End?

Here's something that occupies much of my life but I've never blogged about: Running.
Yeah, I run. Pretty consistently. And I love it.

The Humble Beginnings

I first ran cross country as a freshmen at Linden High School back in California. I grew up playing soccer and always started on defense. But I didn't make the high school team.

On all accounts, it was a smart move by the coach. I spent my previous summer drinking tons of Snapple and watching tons of Family Matters reruns. My favorite hobby was requesting songs on the local radio stations. My main exercise was jumping on the trampoline with my sister. It was a great summer! But physically lazy. And by the time I went to soccer practices, my body was shaped like... something different. I've always been skinny. And I was skinny then. Only then, my body was shaped like a pear and I had little spaghetti arms. After realizing I just wasn't that athletic, I tried making a team nobody gave a crap about: Cross country. How did try-outs go? They didn't have enough people, so they just added me on! It was great!

I wasn't very fast. I always finished at the tail-end of JV races. Due to lack of team participants, I once ran a Varsity race! I finished dead last. But I'll never forget running that race. The Amador High School mascot (some guy in a buffalo costume) was blocking my path when he thought all the runners had passed him, so I pushed him out of the way. Turd.

Jerome XC
My sophomore high school fall season was spent playing soccer for Jerome High School in Idaho. I started JV defense and even got some Varsity playing time toward at the season's end. I just assumed I'd be  playing Varsity when I came back my junior year. I made some good friends on cross country team, so I was going to both soccer and XC practices for about a week. My soccer coach found out about it and made me practice with JV. He said I could either stick with soccer and play Varsity, ot I could do both sports and play JV soccer. That was the last soccer practice I ever attended.
So I took a risk and chose the sport I was historically bad at. I ran some JV, ran a little Varsity. It was worth it to me because I was getting better. The top 7 runners make Varsity, and I finished 6th for the team at the District meet. There was hope for me!
My senior year began all too familiar to my senior year. I always finished with the 7th or 8th best time for the team. I once won a JV race! I won a race! But it was JV. And I was a senior. I took my cookie and walked away. I remember getting my PR at a Jerome race later, which was temporarily exciting. Everybody else got theirs too. And I found myself back on JV. I had to run a JV race on the Twin Falls golf course in the canyon. I felt like I hadn't been running to my potential. I had something to run for. So this time, I did something I had never done before: I competed.
The race had a couple hundred runners and I got 6th place. I beat my PR. I moved up to Varsity with the 6th best time for the team! Next race? I crushed that PR and entered the 17:00 range! I stayed up with our best runners for the rest of the season, which included my best run at the state championship meet! I got 3rd for the team and top 50 in the race! Since I was on such an ascent, I decided to run track that spring. On our first meet, I ran the 1600m in under 11 minutes and I even made the paper. I was improving! But I quit the team entirely to focus on the school musical and the Advanced Speech team. Respectively, some people called me a quitter. But I kept running...

JHS XC, State Academic Champions!

Hero-to-Zero (to hero again)
I spent that summer at Redfish Lake, where I learned the painful joy of mountain running. I'd usually just run 4 miles or so, but I knew I could do more. When I started attending CSI (junior college in Twin Falls), I decided to run the Perrine Bridge 10k. And I won! The run felt great and even though there was limited competition, it was a notable achievement.

Won the 10k with a 39:43

Everything after that race sucked. I ran less and I ran poor. I then served a 2-year LDS mission where I only ran 5 times within those 2 years. Slowly, I became a consistent runner after my mission. I knew it would be a good way to beat out my stress/anxiety/whatever. It was spring semester 2013 at USU where I started making it my reality. I would park my car in the snow and run 4 miles at the indoor track at USU. And it didn't suck. I spent my summer experimenting running in the neighborhood. You ever been to Logan? People live on the side of mountains. So I'd check it out up there, on foot. My fall semester had some lengthy, spirited runs. By 2014, I decided I'd try my very first half marathon.

My 2013 running selfies were relentless

The Magic Era
My half marry training during spring semester 2014 is a glorified period of my life. I would just run for miles everyday. Like, in the friggin snow. Against the wind. And I felt perfectly fine. 0 pain. I could legitimately run 10 miles whenever I wanted and it would just feel like a normal day. This is what people on the actual USU XC team were doing. Mind you, I was just making up a training plan off the top of my head. 3 weeks before my race, reality hit my body like a train. My knee started giving out on me. I ran with a knee brace for the next 3 weeks. Did short jogs. My doctor said my training plan was a bad idea. When the race day came, I was nervous. I knew I could be a contender. What could make my knee better all the sudden? Adrenaline. Last-minute adrenaline.
I ran the Striders Ogden Half Marathon. It was in the Hunstville/Eden area in Ogden canyon. I figured it would be a small outing. This race was so much huger than I imagined! They were sending multiple bus-loads of people to the starting line! They left no empty spaced, either. I remember sitting over the bus wheel (arg!) crammed next to some old guy who couldn't tell that I really didn't want to talk to him. So there are hundreds of people there... and I ran perfectly fine. I finished 17th place! I ran 81:04! The top 20 got medals! I got 2nd place in my age group! Everybody else who beat me was older than me! Which could only mean-- to me, at the time-- those people will be me some day! Only a couple years and I myself could win a half marathon! It only makes sense, right?
Wrong. In fact, my running habit since then deserves its own running metaphor. Since that race, it's all been very slow... and all downhill.

Not too shabby!

All Downhill From Here
A half marathon is 13.1 miles. I was in 12th place for the first 11 miles. I was getting consistently passed at the end of that race. My run as a whole that day was great, but I definitely didn't finish strong. I was dying those last 2 miles. And I've died on many runs since then. I had many cases of shin splints that summer, and running suddenly was no longer fun. I ran the Redfish Memorial Day half marathon in 2015, Finished top 10, but there weren't a lot of other runners (top 3 got medals). And I felt like crap the whole time. I pushed through that summer with some difficult mountain runs, but my stage management major took over my life when I got back to school. I still had the perseverance, but not the time. I'd run 8 miles on Monday afternoon, run 8 miles Saturday afternoon, and call it good. I wasn't training smart enough to do a half marathon this year, so I settled for a 10k this year. I got 4th (top 3 got medals) and even though my performance was just fine, I felt like crap.
The $90 specialty shoes I bought in March have plenty of arch support, but the outside has been deteriorating all summer. I took all of July off from running since nothing felt right. I've had a couple okay runs this month, but nothing over 5 miles. And I still take walk-breaks more than usual. It hasn't been pretty. To cap it all off, I sprained my ankle tonight in a pickup game of basketball.
Oh the humanity! The moment it happened, I knew it was bad. I took my shoe off a couple hours ago and my ankle has inflated to the size of a grapefruit. And growing. I'll have to rest for at least two weeks. With this injury, plus how mediocre/bad my runs have been this month, I can't help but wonder: Is this the end?
I love distance running. It eases my stress. It's where I've come up with my best, clearest thoughts. It gets me feeling confident, strong and dedicated. But lately, I feel like I've been clinging on to something old. I have a show to stage manage next semester. Could this be the end of my running days? My "good" running days? Is there really such a big physical difference between being 23 and 25? I'm taking a hyperfit class next semester, but will that do the trick? Do I need to start at square one next year? Or quit all together? Is this the end?

 It's gotten bigger since I took this photo. At the time, I downloaded this photo to a desktop so I could upload it to my blog. Now? I cannot even  walk to that desktop due to the pain.

Everything Reminds Me Of Everything

Hey Man, Slow Down! Idiot, Slow Down!

Half of my readers recognize the statue pictured above from Temple Square in Salt Lake City. The other half will recognize the whole picture from the leaflet of Radiohead's OK Computer. Well, it's both. I've recently learned that Thom Yorke wrote a few songs in SLC and came to this statue for a place to refocus. This album was released in 1997. It was musically adventurous and the production was the sound of the future. But hey, I didn't hear it all the way through until I was, like, 18, 19. I bought this album in November of 2009. And today, it is extremely difficult for me to listen to it. 

Now as I said before, the music here is great and it still sounds like it came from outer space. Lyrically, this is straight-up depressing. Anxious. Bleak. Dismal. All too real for those who have suffered from mental illness. When I bought this album, I was unaware of my own mental downward spiral. And my immediate love for this album didn't help. 

I remember talking to a counselor in 2010/2011-ish who told me that General Anxiety Disorder was like playing a broken record in your mind. There are tons of negative phrases you repeat to yourself often. Now, it's not like I was haunted by Radiohead lyrics while I was on my LDS mission, but I've always since thought Thom's lyrical approach on this album was him releasing some of his broken-record-anxiety thoughts. "Fitter Happier" in a nutshell. Any time I try to visit this album, I kinda get taken back to my anxious 19-year-old self. I consider it a classic record and I enjoy playing individual tracks occasionally, but I haven't listened to this whole album in nearly 2 years. 

However, OK Computer seems like the pivotal album that reminds me of bad times. But I still think that "jet airline to Jesus Christ's thoughts" picture is awesome. And there are plenty of albums that remind me of GOOD times!

I've Been Wanting To Make This Graph!

I wrote this blog post in May where I claim I was finally learning to live in the moment again. Some of you must be thinking: "Scott, have you had struggles with living in the moment?" Actually, my adult life has been a psycho-emotional experience I can never fully grasp with words. So now-- ladies and gentlemen-- I present to you: The Scott Hall Adult Life Mental Health Line Graph! 

Exciting, isn't it! People can look at this and be like, "I met Scott when he felt super happy about himself! Nice!" Or perhaps, "I met Scott when he was going through a rough time! Oh shoot..." 

Mind you, the scoring system is all based on my own current opinion. I don't really score my mental health with some kinda government-funded testing on a regular basis. Although that low score for "Late 2010" can be backed up by some old paperwork from LDS Family Services. 

I spent a lot of time in the mid-low sections of this graph trying to relive past emotions. I've learned that such a mindset is doomed to fail. So I've been increasingly living in the present, trying not to think too much about my past or my future. And it works! I started feeling familiar and new feelings of happiness, relaxation and creativity! Then something happened to my present: I moved to Jerome, ID. I haven't lived in Jerome since I was a teenager.  

Summer 2016: Everything Reminds Me Of Everything!

This summer has been the ultimate test for me to live in the moment. I kicked it off with that blog post I cited earlier, feeling confident and positive. So I go back home... and everything I do reminds me of something I did a long time ago. 

-I ride my bike by my old high school, I feel like I'm in high school. 

-I listen to "Paranoid Android," I go back to my early anxiety days. 

-I listen to Sufjan Stevens, I suddenly go back to my best summer ever. 

-I listen to music from 2013, I feel like it's 2013. 

-I eat some dinner my mom made, I recall the first time I ever ate it. REALLY, ANYTHING.

Trying to collect the many eras of Scott this summer is worthy of its own roller coaster line graph. I present to you: The Scott Hall Summer 2016 Mental Health Line Graph!

Everything I wrote on there is true. The bad days at work, the owl, the headaches, the pizza, whatever! I really hope people don't worry about me when they see this. See, all those little things like the decline from "pizza" to "headache?" That's all temporary. True, but temporary. The numbers here throughout the summer stay relatively high. But yeah, lately... everything reminds me of everything! And it's as cool as it is annoying!

This whole graph-filled blog might just be my outlet trying to explain the high points and frustrations of my summer. It also might have just been a way for me to show off my Radiohead critique. Either way, I go back to Logan in one week. My days have been, mentally, perfectly fine. The whole overload of nostalgic feelings? I've decided it's kinda funny. And also considering my situation-- living with my parents again and all-- it's kinda normal. Beyond this point, there's no reason to overthink my mind-boggling (but overall, pretty good) summer. I have bigger fish to fry. 

As long as we're living in the moment, we're gold. 

Bam. 

Moral of the story. 

Time for some "Exit Music (For A Blogpost)." 

Cue corny movie credits music. 

JT.