Last night as I'm running (Sarah had joined me on the bike = happiness!) I decided to take a loop around Old Dominion's campus. I had not been feeling so great but something about the combination of the distance into the run combined with the feel of being around a college made me feel a little better. So my run turned into a slow tempo and my pace dropped from my 'just running to run' pace to 'maybe I'll go a little faster' pace. Felt good - challenging and yet easy, a good pace. But as I ran past a group of college folks getting done with some sort of late day orientation I hear one of them say to her friend, "Don't you wish you had that kind of energy."
Of course the good natured part of me that wanted to stop and educate the sort of energy I was expending does not come easily (but is free if you're willing to work up to it), but the runner in me was on a good pace, so I kept going (and the normal person inside of me knows that socially such a conversation probably wouldn't go well). But what a statement. I found myself thinking the same thing - "I wish I had the kind of energy she thinks I have!" Ha, what a misconception the world has been living in all this time.
I've heard comments like these since I started running. People who watch the running or even other runners will come up and say things like, "You make it look easy," or, "Man, if only I could run like that," or any other slew of comments that insinuate one common theme: They think it's easy for me to run. I was always thankful that my competition could not read minds because if they could they would have most assuredly have beaten me almost every race! Through all of the pain that running has brought me through races, the overwhelmingly most positive thought I can remember whilst actually in the midst of racing hard is, "Well, you're over halfway through the race now. Quitting would be a shame." That's it! That's the best my mind could come up with the spur me on to the finish line.
And maybe most of the time it was enough... I'm sure there were other times when someone passing me or a comment from a coach or father would motivate me... but from within that's pretty much the best I had in me to offer myself in the face of pain. In short, I thought it a comical comment! And my answer is "yes!" I do wish I had that kind of energy!
Anyone have any of their favorite comments from runs past?
When I was in 9th grade, I thought I was a pretty decent runner--at least relative to the rest of my gym class. After class one day, though, one of my friends asked me to run to a fixed point and back. I did so, thinking I was perhaps impressing the young lady standing next to him. When I returned, he turned to her and said, "See? I told you he looks funny when he runs."
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