Last Saturday I was completely out of energy. Ahead of me a guy had picked up the pace and I couldn’t keep up with him. The heat, for me, was extreme. My legs had nothing left. I slowed down for a kilometer, then I found the strength to push a little more, just a little bit more, and I crossed my first finish line at a running race.
It was the 2nd Maratonina Cuprense, eight kilometers. I finished it in 38’13”, sixteenth in my category: SM40. It stands for “Seniores Maschile, ages 40-44” — the code Italy’s federation (FIDAL) uses to group runners by sex and age.
Two and a half years ago I went back to running — I was still drinking back then: I weighed eight kilos more than I do now. Then, by quitting alcohol for six months, I managed to lose about ten kilos.
This past winter I had several problems. My wife went back to work and one of my two girls had some difficulties I didn’t manage to handle very well. I felt like butter on bread. When there’s little butter, you spread it as far as you can, but the bread will never be covered enough.
The bread, at a certain point, grew even larger, but my being butter wasn’t enough.
Even during this complicated, heavy period I kept training, waking up three times a week at 5:40. The alarm goes off, I drink a glass of water, I get changed, I head out to run or to go to the gym. In the evening, exhausted, I collapse at 10 p.m. This was, and still is, my routine.
I’ll tell you: don’t judge yourself for what you’ll do. There are roads inside us that we take when things go wrong. For me it was like that. The drinking, which had left completely, came back. Not as strong as before, because when you enter a change this destructive your mind changes. When you go back to where you were — or rather, where you think you’ve gone back to — you’re wrong. You’ve changed: your mind has changed, because the effort you made in that period changed it.
Right now I feel a strong urge to leave, to be somewhere else, since I’ve always lived where I was born. That one, I feel it strongly. I don’t know if it’s because this winter was very hard: I’ve put a couple of kilos back on, but I’m still at a normal weight and -8 kg from where I started.
Unfortunately, society is built around drinking. It’s genuinely complex not to drink when you socialize. I’m shining a light on this: don’t judge yourself. You’re just immersed in a society where people don’t share your same sensitivity about alcohol, and you’ll have to give yourself some rules.
Drink sparkling water. Then drink sparkling water with lemon. And to finish, a nice glass of fizzy water. Oh, did I mention you should drink sparkling water?
Don’t judge yourself. Don’t allow it, because you’re doing everything you can to get out of a road you didn’t choose and that you’re walking the best you can. But you do have to make an effort. Remember that. You have to commit: no one will do it for you.
If you want, write me an email at valerio.narcisi@gmail.com, or leave a comment if you’d like to share your experience with me — or with whoever lands on this page.
This post was not written with AI. It’s written by a human, like you.
See you soon.
Comments
Loading comments...