A (Very) Brief Return To a Familiar Place

Most of you probably don’t know this about me (well, I know at least one of you does *wink*) but back in The Day, I was a concert pianist. Throughout my high school years, I was practicing and preparing endlessly for competitions, recitals and conservatory auditions. It was a very intense part of my life, but I did have opportunities to have fun with my talent – I wrote songs, I taught kids in my neighborhood, I played in the jazz band, traveled to Switzerland, accompanied the choir, and my jazz band even cut an album. (ok, it was a cassette recording but still…it was done in a real recording studio!)

As I got closer to college auditions – things got intense. I had to practice 2 or 3 hours a day, 4 or 5 hours a day on the weekends. I would spend hours and hours on one passage within one line of a sonata. I would do endless drills to get my fingers to move ‘just so’ to get one bar of a Bach invention to sound just right. (ie just like Bach would play it ha ha)

During long practice sessions with my instructor, sometimes things just did not fall into place on any given day. Sometimes my instructor would massage my tense shoulders and tell me to ‘step away from the piano’ for a day or two. Performing a Beethoven Sonata or a Mozart concertina required much much more than technical skill. There was a mental and emotional component as well, and on some days, all factors just did not come together for a perfect practice session.

For all the preparation and practice that went into an audition or a special performance, there was still the matter of the ‘unknown’ at showtime. I never knew what a performance would bring, other than the simple fact that I knew I was well-prepared, that I had done everything I could to get the repertoire under my hands.

But then….things can happen. Two days before my Senior Recital, I somehow managed to scratch my cornia. Thank goodness all of my pieces were memorized, so I did not have to ‘read’ music, but it still was enough to throw some angst into something that I had been basically been preparing 4 years for. Or, there was my audition to Bowling Green’s music conservatory….I sat down to begin a very technically and emotionally charged sonata and I started IN THE SECOND MOVEMENT! I remember just being astounded that I had done something SO amateur. Oh my god, I beat myself up for WEEKS after that. All is well that ends well though, as I still got a scholarship AND the offer to study with a renowned piano professor that only took juniors and seniors as students.

I remember my teacher presenting me with a piece in my Freshman year of high school, and saying ‘THIS will be the finale of your Senior Recital’. I remember thinking What? That’s like, four years away? Why are you giving me this now? Then I opened the music….holy COW. There was NO WAY I should even be attempting this piece – was she crazy? But, I went to work on it – bar by bar, line by line, note by note. By the end of one year I had mastered the first movement. It still needed some fine tuning, but I had it down. By the end of the second year, I had the second movement perfected, and the first movement fell even better under the hands. And so on…and finally, what had seemed so impossible in the beginning, had become possible.

I landed my big scholarship and a great professor to study with…life was good. This is what I had worked for, but there would be more work to come. In fact SO much work that in my freshman year of college, I crashed and burned. The competition among piano students was fierce. I was a freshman studying with the best piano professor – I had to keep up with juniors and seniors and even some grad students! I wanted to be a music TEACHER, but all the emphasis was on my performance. Suddenly playing the piano was not so fun anymore. I was spent. I started craving something new. Music became a chore, all the elements of fun in music had gone out the window.

That’s not the end of the story, but you can probably see where I’m going with this. Lately I’ve been feeling this familiar feeling. I am stressing myself out, and I’ve noticed some element of the ‘fun’ with running is slipping away a little. Alas, I am falling into ‘concert pianist’ mode. I am placing way high expectations on myself – for something that is supposed to be a new, fun and healthy adventure – a hobby, a past time, a passion….suddenly I’ve noticed myself going into ‘hard work’ mode. Perfectionist Cyndi Mode…unforgiving of my mistakes or perceived ‘failures’. (ie my stupid run in the heat last weekend) I am NOT training for the olympics for goodness sake, this is supposed to be FUN. Yes, it’s great to challenge myself, try something new – develop a new ‘skill’…but lately every run seems difficult, and I am WAY too intense about my training and progress, or lack thereof. I need to practice balance.

It suddenly occurred to me while running Wednesday evening that I have been in This Place before in my life. And that is not the way I want running to be for me. And yet, I’ve slowly started slipping into that place.

So I am catching myself and pulling myself out of Concert Pianist mode! It’s time to put the fun back in the run! Nine months ago, I could not run one lap around the track without practically passing out. This weekend I am going to go for a ten mile run!

How fun is that? I don’t know how long it will take me, I may have to take some walk breaks – but I do know that I will celebrate every step. Because really, I have come so much farther than I even imagined, in a relatively short period of time in the whole scheme of things. And this is really just the beginning – there is so much more fun to have! I was reading a race report over at AKA Alice the other day, and it struck me how much FUN she has with her running friends ('The Herd" ha ha love it), funny adventures, wonderful scenery, great races topped off with mimosas and great food. I couldn't help but think THAT is what this is all about. Yes we want to beat our previous time, a PR is always a plus, but good health, fun and friendship is really what it is all about!


Wishing you all fun runs this weekend ~ I'll be back to report on my very first 10 mile run on Sunday!

Cheers!