About a month ago I made the choice to run in the annual rite of spring 10k race, the temperature hovered around freezing with some bizarre mixture of rain/sleet/hail/snow falling, and the winds were gusting to 20 miles an hour. Needless to say my running partner and I spoke little during the run so I had plenty of time to think and my thoughts went something like this:

“Who does this? Why am I doing this? Is that hail? Is that person seriously wearing shorts?”

After a few (very little) hills that seemed like the same (very big) ones I ran in SF, my thoughts continued along these lines….

“Did I really choose to this? What are my options here? Can I give up? What would I do? Can I sit down hang out on this incredibly breezy bridge with this crap pelting me?”

I finally caught my breath and realized how I was holding myself back. I found myself thinking…

“Wait I can to this! I’ve made it through worse! Instead of fighting it, just give in…let go!”

I was able to relax into my stride and although I almost tackled the well-meaning spectator who was shouting “half mile left” (which sounded like you have 20 miles left), I happily survived. I walked away from the whole wet experience reflecting on other times in my life where I sometimes feel like giving up. Giving up on relationships, house renovations, parenting, my professional life. Instead of fighting with myself I need to remember to get out of my own way. Inevitably when I give in and let go life works out as it should. The best reinforcement of this was when I looked up the race results and found I’d run at my fastest pace ever!

So where can you give in...instead of giving up? Where can you let go?

 


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