Hope provides a huge frame of possibilities. Hope provides an opportunity to do the work, with purpose. Today I learned a third lesson.
I set out this morning running west and pushed through the 12 minute “I don’t want to do this” mark and circle St Patrick’s Island three times and turned east. By the time I hit my familiar Pearce Estates trails I was at 10k and just under an hour. Feeling hopeful (or more likely prideful), I picked up the pace just a stride or two. I was rolling along churning up kilometers. 13,15,17 and feeling great. I had refueled at 90 minutes with 1/2 a banana and a protein drink and reckoned I was on my way to 15 k in 3 hours, easily. Kilometer 18 rolled by and I was slowing, feeling lactic acid my legs and realizing I only had a small amount of water left. At 2 hours I was 19.2k and at 20k my calves both cramped.
Under my normal modus operandi and with stubbornness and pride I would have just pushed on but hope said ” you have another day, you can run again another day”. The lesson I learned, well two lessons are that hope allows me to see another opportunity sometime in the undefined future and hope requires that I do a better job preparing myself for what I should expect. She doesn’t ask me to be a fortune teller and prepare for the unexpected but requires that I am ready for what is easily predictable(like needing a second bottle of water).
I am taking credit for limping home with 20k and 2 hours 10 minutes under my belt and hopeful that 25k and 3 hours is in my future.
Make Today Remarkable, by testing hope,
B
