Some days, the struggle is real. The struggle is awful. Some days, the struggle wins.
But it was not this day.
On Sunday, my friend Steph and I strategized to run a 12k rather than the 18k the Running Room group was going to do. I forgot my watch, unfortunately. I didn’t think it would be a big deal. I honestly didn’t. Just run, I told myself, you don’t need to know the time or distance. The group will know, and that’s enough. Ha!
I chattered desperately at first, determined to not be thinking about the time – or distance – that we were running. When we had reached what I was sure would be close to our turning point [6k], I asked how far we’d run.
“3.3k!” One girl chirped.
That was when the grimness set in. I stopped focusing on chatting and started to focus on gritting down for the other 9k. Steph, myself, and another runner split off around 6k so we could head back. Every step was a challenge. I would hold out for as long as I could before blurting out, “when’s the next walking break?”.
Steph – bless her heart – would look at her phone whenever I asked about a walking break and say, “riiight…NOW.” I don’t know if it really was or wasn’t. I didn’t want to know if we were walking every 10 minutes (as we were meant to do) or every 5 minutes just to appease me, or even every 15 minutes because I was the only one keeping track of when we could walk next. I told my buddies I couldn’t keep the pace and needed to slow down and – bless their hearts – they slowed down right with me. And kept talking. And kept me running. I felt ashamed, and apologized profusely to my running buddies for holding them back. “I’m just not feeling it. I’m really struggling today.”
They wouldn’t accept my apology and refused me the right to make it. “You’re fine.” They told me. “We’re still running a good pace and everyone has those days.” I knew it was true, but I still hate it when one of Those Days happens to me!
When I asked our mileage and heard we had done just over 9k, I perked up considerably. 3k left, 3k left, 3k left! And in the end it was less than 3k, as we only did 11.5km. But I did it! Even when the struggle wanted to beat me down and stomp all over me. Sure, the middle 6k were awful, but I did it.
