It’s 6AM. You know you’re ready to bring your beach body out of hiding but you’re still a little iffy on whether or not you’re quite ready to emerge from underneath your bedspread. To hell with it, you’re up and your clothes are laid out- just do it. Next thing you know you’ve adorned yourself in your favorite running gear and downed two glasses of sparkling water- now you’re on the way out of the front gate. You wince and second guess every decision you ever made to arrive at this point as the cool morning breeze shocks your system to alertness.
The first few steps are the worst, your legs feel as if they’re weighed down by anvils and you feel aerobically maxed out. This is temporary. Just weakness leaving the body, as they say. As you begin to hit your rhythm- your legs loosen, and your stride lengthens. Your labored breathing which moments ago seemed so deafening that it might’ve woken the neighbors now sounds like a mouse tip-toeing by comparison.
You’re only 5 minutes in but you are sweating, and much to your surprise- the corners of your lips are subconsciously turning upward to form a smile, or at least a grimace. You begin to notice things you had never seen before in your very own neighborhood. “There’s a café there?”
Keep it up, you’ve now run 12 minutes and covered more than a mile! You can taste the salt on your lips, who needs Gatorade when you can replenish your own electrolytes? You are your own microecosytem. Self-sufficient, unique and perfect in every way. Just three minutes to go now and you want to finish strong. You’re beginning to fatigue but you think of the version of you that you are destined to be. As your stride opens and speed increases, you make it back to the block you live on. You are now sprinting and openly defying every false appraisal you’ve ever made of yourself. You see clearly that you’ve been selling yourself short and wonder what else you might be capable of as you break form and cross the finish line that is your driveway. As you catch your breath and hear your heart beating in you ears you feel relieved- not because you’ve finished but because you had the courage to take that first step. In just 20 minutes you have finished the hardest part of the best day you’ve had in a long time- and probably the most rewarding too.