Training

Effort or F-it?

April 20, 2010
By Rebecca Gardiner

Day 94 of 130
Ks covered: 673
Ks to go: 429
General mood: down
Running highlight: non-existent
Equipment status: Still in use
Body status: Shoulder, yes shoulder, very sore.
Weight: Taking your advice - still ignoring it f.

What’s Kenyan for Screw-it?

My friends, I’ve hit the wall and the urge to just stop all this training is overwhelming.

Last Thursday, I ran 34K. For 10K, my second running partner was a side-stitch more excruciating than this.

Normally, I’m psyched when I finish a run like that — proud of myself for being closer to Kenyan than my sedentary friends; for giving the middle finger to pain and pushing on; for rocking the suburbs (Insert kick-ass-victory-song here).

Going in, the run had potential to be a super-awesome… but it wasn’t. Here are five other important things that would be true in my cotton-candy universe:

1. The chin-pump face toner would do what it promised.
2. Hollywood would be awash with Flowbee hairdos.
3. John Travolta would still fit into his leather pants from ‘Grease’ (Hmmm, OK, I’m wrong about that)
4. My Mum’s Massai sandals would be cool
5. My morning newspaper would be delivered by a troupe of friendly clowns.

Alas.

Why is it that the word ‘effort’ sounds so much like ‘f-it’? It seems it’s no mistake that the harder I try the more I want to give up. I guess I was hoping that my runner’s wall would be made of rice paper, but actually breaking through this one is as fun-filled as a cement bouncy castle.

All I can do is chip away with my sharp new pair of Asics, hoping that the light I’m glimpsing at the end of the tunnel is not simply a heatstroke hallucination.

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