A stroll in the park(run)
My first hard run of the year and the only thing I could be sure of was that I'd have a moment of panic at some point
At some point midway through my parkrun on Saturday, the thought jumped into my head, as it does pretty much every time: I can’t keep this up. This is horrible. Why do I do this? I’m never running a five-K ever again.
Up until that point, I’d been riding the edge. I was pushing hard, the heart racing, but not too much, holding myself on the right side of the line, like a tightrope walker in the zone. But it’s a delicate balance, and one that can easily be lost.
Up on a tightrope, I imagine, you can’t allow a single doubt to enter your mind. The stakes are admittedly a bit higher (literally and figuratively) than in a parkrun, but it’s a similar thing. One doubt and panic sets in, and it all falls apart. But this time I caught myself just in time. I remembered my escape hatch: smiling.
I started grinning, looking at everything around me as though it was a wonderful, joyous world I lived in, and how lucky and amazing it was just to be there, running. I knew I was simply trying to trick myself, but it still worked; as I smiled ear to ear, the panic alarm stopped ringing in my head and I calmly locked back in to chasing the guy in front.
