Motivation is a funny thing

4 months ago, I ran a 5k race. In the months leading up to my race, I would train about 2 or 3 times a week. In the winter I ran the track at my school and in the early spring I ran outside. I started off by running 2k and worked my way up eventually to 4k. I was so pumped to run the race, my goal was to run the race in under 45 mins, and so I trained, because there was no way I was going to fail. Especially in front of strangers. That is a no-no.

Then came race day. It must have been close to 30 degrees out. I remember the forecast calling for a high of 27 but it felt much hotter than that. I remember standing in line and hearing the gun go off, and I started running. I had a hard time pacing myself because there were so many people next to me, so you would speed up to pass the slow people and then slow down because a crowd of people were standing in front of you. And it was HOT. The race started off well, but by about 1.5k I was starting to get tired but in my head I kept on telling myself, don't stop or else you wont start again. It was probably around the 2k mark that I had started telling myself that I just need a minute to just stop and get my breath. I remember thinking, 'don't stop moving, at least keep walking' but I could not force my legs to keep moving at this point through sheer jedi mind-power alone. And the second I stopped running I knew that if I stoped once, I would probably stop again. Not good if I wanted to finish in 45 minutes. So after a 30 second breather (I made sure to find a shady spot, to double the effectiveness of the pause, because even in defeat one must always have good strategy) I started running again. But at this point I knew if I stoped another time, I would be cutting it close, I was already around 18 minutes and only halfway through. So around the 3k mark I slowed down but this time I kept my feet moving. I forced myself to just keep at least walking. In my mind, I remember telling myself, 'just keep walking, just keep walking' until I had gotten myself back together. And I could see my goal, and I thought 'Uh oh, I'm not going to make it.'

Then I said to myself, I don't only want to be under 45 mins, I want to be way under 45. So instead of telling myself to just keep walking, I told myself, 'No more breaks, its running from here on out.' And that was all it took. I was tired, but I kept running and in my head I was telling myself, you are almost there, it's so close, there is no way you are going to walk this close to the finish line.

In the end, I ran the race in 34 minutes and came in 2081th place out of some 5000+. I am sure I could have ran it faster if I had my end-of-race mentality for the entire race. But this is the first time where I actually saw the power of positive thinking playing out.

I feel like Thomas the tank engine.