Follow junior distance runner Nora Hubbell of Mt Desert Island as she blogs about her indoor season. Hubbell fInished 6th in the Class B 3200m race last spring. She'll run the 800m, Mile & 2 Mile this winter.
Hello!
The best way to start this would probably be to introduce myself. My name is Nora Hubbell, and I’m a junior at Mount Desert Island High School. I love running; it’s been a huge part of my life for a long time, basically since I was six or seven. There’s something about running that I can’t quite put my finger on. Partially, it’s the ability to go out and go for a run whether I’m at home, or in another country. Another part of it is the sense of control, the knowledge that I’m in charge of my running. If I put in hours of work and keep my head, I’ll see results. It can be hard to find noticeable gratification like that, so this is important for me because sometimes I need to know that I’m making progress. Finally, running is something that can’t be taken away from me, and it’s nice to have that sense of security.
Since this is my first post, I think I should address my cross country season. A number of people have asked me why I was unable to finish the season, and I’d like to give as much explanation as I can in good conscience. Junior year has been difficult for me, since I had a difficult course load: two of my four classes were honors, and one was an AP, the latter of which is the most difficult and time consuming class at MDI. A combination of this and intrapersonal conflicts on the cross country team made it impossible for me to finish the season.
It was a difficult choice to make, and I still wonder what would have happened if I’d chosen differently, but at the end of the day I think I made the right decision, despite the repercussions that I am still dealing with. For a while, it was practically impossible to respond to people who asked me why I wasn’t running, or if someone congratulated me on a meet that I didn’t run in.
Despite this, I continued running. I went to as many meets as I could and cheered on my teammates and friends. I tried my best to set myself up for a good indoor season. I dropped my AP class. I took up gymnastics again and started an internship at the Jackson Lab. However, at the end of October, just before the cross country state meet and two weeks into my training for indoor, I rolled my ankle pretty badly. I took a couple of weeks off from training, although I attempted a couple of runs on the weekends to no avail. This, in combination with my less than satisfactory cross country season, destroyed me mentally. I was having trouble getting myself to go for runs, and when I did run I ended up giving up part way through. I felt terribly out of shape, which added to my lack of motivation, because I felt like the gratification that I used to get out of running was no longer there.
I knew I needed to get myself out of that rut, since if I didn’t get myself set up for a good indoor season I would have a terrible time this winter, and if I was unhappy at the end of indoor, I probably wouldn’t be able to get myself to run outdoor or cross country next fall. So, I tried to keep training. I ran with my friends when I could and tried to keep myself motivated. My ankle wasn’t getting better, but running on it wasn’t making it worse, so, after some debate, I kept running. I started indoor, and motivating myself to run got easier. I started getting back some of my self-confidence.
I’m still building myself back up. It’s difficult, exhausting even, and it doesn’t happen overnight, but every day it’s a little easier to go run. I’m running by myself once or twice a week, and that is becoming easier as well. So, even if I’m not completely back to where I was before, I’m getting there, and I know that that’s the essential part.
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