Limits

Part of running is experiencing your limitations. Of course, certain circumstances raise the bar of our limitations. Fearing for your life would, for example, make you run faster. But many circumstances are fleeting: you cannot always rely upon fear to make you run fast. Instead you have to rely on choice, and hope that you continue to run.

As an English teacher, I have about 21 hours of marking to complete this week in addition to my usual work. I have established a gifted and talented project tomorrow. Normally I would avoid putting students in a position where I trust them to organise themselves to use their initiative. Now, though, I am too busy to concern myself with that. And that is a good thing.

It is 11:37pm on a Sunday night. I have not rested or relaxed. However, unlike my student days, I am able to retire to separate bedroom from the study that I have worked from most of today. I do not have a long walk back from a cold library. Instead it is across the landing of my apartment. I trust I will be able to sleep and then work on the sleep I manage tonight.

On the weekend just gone I managed to run 22:22 for a 5k with less effort than before. There was no sense of urgency: just a relatively steady pace. I need to, at some point, examine my Garmin and see how far I slow and how much the gradient affects me. Truth is, though, I managed to run well for my fitness.

I am slower than before by a substantial way. But at least there is a base of fitness. And that base of fitness coincides with the run up of Year 11 exams, which requires a level of fitness that cannot be sustained all year.

Motivation can be simply choice: the fear of choice is whether we choose that which otherwise does not benefit us.