17 oct 2014 by Tim Nguyen Two Days before my first half marathon and 4 months from when I started running.
May 20, 2014, something happened that changed my life forever. I had been experiencing bright spots for a few weeks and loss of vision in my left eye. I didn’t think much of it as there was no pain involved Continue reading
I just ran 7km off the couch and didn’t die.
Often times we look to others to inspire us, push us, challenge us. Though it’s important to use others as a nitro boost, the most important place to look is in yourselves.
I’ve been raised to compare myself to those around me. People who are smarter, taller, stronger. Where did it get me? Well for a long time it cultivated a creature who was low self confident, insecure and unsure.
Somewhere along the way the real me emerged and I started comparing, myself to myself and things began to change.
When I do things now, I work to outdo myself and in doing so I am solely accountable for my successes and failures.
When we compare ourselves to someone else we can then easily make excuses for why we didn’t succced. “Oh well he can run farther because he’s a guy.” Or “they’ve trained their whole life to play sports.”
Today I ran – like an old lady turtle – 7km. My only goal was to get outside. Get to the next tree, the next bench, the next Canadian goose.
” Can’t Rush This. “
Shuffle step shuffle step. On more than one occasion starting from leaving work I was making excuses “ugh it’s getting late.” “I’m hungry.”
When I parked the car at Edworthy Park I looked around and thought one thing at a time.
I put on my heart rate monitor. I strapped my knee stabilizers. I filled my little hip water bottles.
I started to walk towards the trail. Set my playlist. Turned on my heart rate monitor. Took a breath. Here we go.
The first 100m. Ugh I’m so awkward, my breathing is off. My legs hurt. Then I would take a moment and look around. A train passed. I watched it and smiled. “I love trains.”
Shuffle step shuffle step. One step at a time.
It’s a lot like life. When you look at the whole picture, we get overwhelmed. Work, bills, life, success. If we just try to look at one thing at a time, just the things in front of us. Time will pass, things will get done and before you know it your knees no longer hurt. Your breathing is steady, the world is less scary and 7km seems like something totally doable.
I only had myself to compete with and whether I finished or not I’m just happy I make the effort to show up. However since I DID finish!! I now have something to look to when I need to inspire myself.
Now. I eat.
