I've often admired athletes who compete in any kind of endurance sport. I imagine that they exist in a different mental world to me, where they're just doing this hideous, long-distance thing without any nagging doubts. Endurance is not my thing. If I have to run 200 metres for the bus I'll tell myself, "Well, is it that urgent? There'll be another one along in 15 minutes/3 hours - just wait for that one."
So it was very refreshing to have Tam O'Shanter tell me that apart from a couple of minutes of pure elation here and there she pretty much spent the 42 kilometres of the Rottnest Marathon plaguing herself with the idea that it was all too hard and there'd be no shame in stopping - stopping RIGHT NOW.
Luckily she beat those voices but hearing that from one like her gave me a real lift. "See," I told myself, "you're doing okay. There's absolutely no difference between you and a marathon runner. Except, you know, they can run marathons."
1 comment:
That's so funny. A good friend of ours at University said pretty much the same thing. He said he had never felt worse than when he was running a marathon.
Instead of running again, like all the other masichists in the world, he reminds himself frequently of how much he hated it, whenever he thinks "that might be fun." No. Not fun. Don't bother.
:-)
I think that's why we got along so well.
Post a Comment