Sometimes life goes fast – too fast – and before you know it you don’t know where to start. And sometimes we need to take a pause in order to start anew. And in the pause we can stop and reflect.
Today is one of those days – it is the 60th anniversary of when Roger Bannister became the first man to run a mile in less than 4 minutes.
Thanks to Dan of Run Rest Repeat, who I met last year at the inaugural Write This Run, today I took a pause, put on my running shoes, and ran a mile in honour of that amazing achievement all those years ago.
I have been silent on the blog, overwhelmed with work and frankly really struggling with my emotions about training and doing triathlon this year. It is no secret that my knee has not felt right for quite some time. I haven’t really felt much like writing recently. Nor have I felt much like training. I am still doing both – when and how I can, and mostly in private, as running AND writing are a real stress release for me which I have needed in the past few weeks.
When Dan tweeted his idea – to get 60 people from across the globe to dedicate a mile to the anniversary of the great feat of Roger Bannister – I jumped at the idea. I was a chance to start again – to write my run. And to find the optimism.
Today when I plodded across the fields, I was reminded of 5 years ago when I started my journey to fitness and started to learn to run again. The sun was shining, I was in a tank top, and like today it was hard. But I ran – then as today – because I could. Because I believed.
I believed that it is not about how fast you go… It is not about breaking land speed records… (even though today’s run and post were spurred on by the celebration of the first man broke a land speed record…
It is about getting out there, giving it a go, trying, not giving up, and trying again and again. Trying until your heart feels satisfied that you have tried and learned what you could – about yourself, about what it feels like to try, and through that process you learn about life.
I spent almost 14 minutes running a mile today.
I did a run-walk – 3 minutes of running followed by 1 minute of walking. It’s how I run these days – the only way my body will let me. It felt hard. But I did it. I faced my demons and ran a mile, in the same place where I started.
My mile is dedicated to Roger Bannister, and everyone else, who commits to a goal and by doing so changes their perceptions and redefines their limits – no matter if they are of a world record breaking or deeply personal nature.