2021: A Year In Review
This past year has been surprising and unexpected. It feels like I’ve slid backwards repeatedly, and yet I’ve somehow managed to move forward. I’ve made progress that rarely felt like progress in the moment. This year has been endlessly draining, but at times it’s been good. Twists and turns, highs and lows. Like every year really. But also not like any other year at all.
This year kicked off with so much looming hope. After a long lockdown, we were cautiously, excitedly emerging from our cocoons. The summer felt like a return to less complicated times. There were even moments on those warmer days, headed into the fall, that felt almost carefree. It didn’t last. And we are saying goodbye to 2021 the same way we began: uncertain about nearly everything.
My year has not been the easiest one I’ve ever had. It hasn’t been bad exactly. Just incredibly long. Actually, a lot of this year makes my 2020 look like smooth sailing. Last year the sea was super choppy for the whole world, but somehow my boat found mostly calm patches of water. This year though, I’ve battled my share of storms and gotten battered a bit in the process.
If I were to wrap the year up into one word, 2021 was my year of setbacks.
At the beginning of January, I was in the best shape of my life. I wasn’t as fast a runner as I was in college, but I felt stronger across every distance than I think I’ve ever felt. There weren’t any races to test out my fitness, but that hadn’t mattered to me. What mattered was that on my long runs or during my workouts, I felt like an athlete.
Then, during my early spring training build, I felt just a touch sluggish on most of my harder effort days. I tried building up more slowly, but the sparks and fire that should’ve been in my legs, just wasn’t. A few blood tests later, I learned that some of my iron levels were low. Not so low that I wasn’t healthy. But low enough that I couldn’t ask my body to train where I wanted it to for the time being.
After years of trying to get into a solid strength training routine, I finally had one that worked for me. It wasn’t a lot, but it was consistent and I knew it was making me stronger. What’s more is that I actually enjoyed the handful of minutes spent daily with my mini band set. The addition of core work to my daily routine was part of that great, athletic feeling I started the year with.
And then in mid-April, a serious chest muscle strain interrupted my strength training routine. For several weeks, most movements were uncomfortable at best, and re-injuring at worst. It might be the worst injury I’ve ever had, especially because of how little it took to aggravate a flare up. It took six months for me to feel confident that I was safe doing a few pushups again.
After the chest muscle strain and before I knew that my iron levels were low, I grew anxious about my health in a way I’ve never been. When I was feeling rational, I knew that nothing was seriously wrong. But in the moments when I let my brain link passing out at my first vaccine appointment to the constant tightness in my chest and my consistent dragging fatigue, I became the weakest version of myself.
For the month of May and the first few days in June, I let anxiety take over my life. I let my worries win and drive me to some dark places. Good things immediately came from it. Without the anxiety around my health, I may not have gotten blood work done for the first time in about a decade. I certainly wouldn’t have had an EKG and know now that everything with my heart is working just fine. But after the tests were done, it took a few months of arguing with my anxiety every day, then a few times a week, before I felt confident and like myself again.
Add in the dozen trips to the car dealership for service appointments and oil consumption tests, and the shoulder injury in August. Plus the constant need to rebalance and readjust my schedules and commitments. Anyway, you get the point. My year of setbacks.
But 2021 has also been my year of comebacks. Not complete comebacks, but the beginnings of some great things I’m building for myself.
It took a few months of lighter running and adding a daily iron pill to my routine, but fall training felt good again. I’m not running as many miles or as fast as I was a year ago, but I don’t feel like I’ve lost fitness. And I’m finally able to do pushups again, so consistent core work is also on a comeback. I still feel like an athlete. Maybe just not an athlete at the pinnacle of a successful training cycle.
My overall health is in a good place. Probably a better place than a year ago, because I’m building up my iron stores instead of draining them. Plus I’ve had every doctor, dentist, and eye appointment I was supposed to have in calendar year. I don’t think I’ve done that since my parents were scheduling them and driving me to my appointments.
There were things I wanted to accomplish this year that I just never got around to. My goals were vague, and I was never diligent about creating strong systems. Maybe I needed that though. Maybe I needed a year to reestablish what’s important to me, and what isn’t. I set some things aside this year that I’m looking forward to picking back up.
This year has been a year of hard won lessons. It’s been one long reminder that setbacks are there to help us reprioritize and refocus. Without setbacks, you’d never have the comebacks.
