Why am I doing this? Because as I turned the last corner, with 800m to go, I knew I had done it, new PB. Whooping in the street at 6.30am in the middle of Tooting isn't going to gain you any friends, but I did it anyway. Pathetic.
This could be classified as insta boasting..(more on that in a minute) And, I'm well aware not everyone gives a fuck about running a sub 20min 5k... BUT that's because for most people running a sub 20min 5k.... or any distance that they're used to running, faster than they've run it before, is just fucking admin. It hurts. And you have to sacrifice other stuff in order to achieve it.
Recently I've been studying for a post grad marketing qualification. That's more fucking admin right there. Ever tired to learn something academic almost 10 years after the last time you were in an academic environment? I make up 75% of Investopedia's web traffic googling definitions and marketing and business guff. One thing that has resonated with me is the concept of opportunity cost. I.e. by doing this marketing course that will give me a (hopefully) improved CV or at the very least another opportunity to be right all the time, I have to pay 10 hours of my week in reading and related coursework admin, that I would rather spend drinking espresso martinis with men, at Barry's or, well, sleeping.
The point of all this is that nothing worth having comes easy. And if it does come easy you're really not going to value it that much, and neither is anyone else, which, lets be honest is part of the reason you're bothered about it anyway, right? #Instaboast. In order for me to feel like Jess Ennis winning Olympic gold (except on a back street of south London on a cold May morning), I had to spend time in the hurt locker.
The thing about Jess, as an aside... is that we always see her like this....
but once upon a time Jess spent a lot of time like this......
Just because we see success all over social media does not mean that everyone else isn't struggling through something. What I've learnt about being a little more vulnerable is that you actually make better connections with other people as a result. And with that in mind...
This year I've spent a lot of time just feeling really uncomfortable, physically (again thanks Barrys). Out of my depth, professionally. Nervous, emotionally. Scared, and happier than I ever have before. Those who know me will say that im not a tentative dip your toe in the cold water type of girl... im either in or im out. Fuck yes or Fuck no. This is a pretty risky strategy, as my fellow triathletes braving the first fucking freezing open water swimming of the season will attest to, the slow immersion technique is actually much safer, but no less uncomfortable.
Back to the why of all this uncomfortable early morning running and cold water swimming and extracurricular studying and professional boundary pushing and nervous (yeah not really) dating.... Because happiness requires struggle and opening yourself up to failure or............ a new 5k PB, a promotion, a new skill, or at least a really funny story to tell once you've got over the disaster.
Putting limits on your capability is safe, it keeps you in a comfort zone whereby everything is just nice and easy. If you're not careful though, you come to believe them and then months, years later you realise that you've spent too long just being instead of really living.
The thing with running fast(er than you've run before), is, yeah it's training admin and yeah it's diet admin, but really it's just believing that you can, and if you don't the first time, that you'll come out of the hurt locker knowing that you're stronger and braver than you thought.
