Beyond that, I seriously want to beat my PB ("Personal Best").
I went for a run with a friend last Saturday and unlike me, she just did not care at all to beat her PB. Her time did not matter. She just wanted to have fun during the training and the race... I will now sound mad and crazy and obsessive but I instantly wanted to convince her to beat her PB.
I am very conscious of the fact that I have not trained properly because I was busy (lazy?) and the race is very hilly and it is indeed very possible that I will not succeed to beat my PB... ...but at least I am gonna try! Really hard! And it's definitely the aim! It's somehow not conceivable for me to not try on d-day. It got me thinking, why do I care so much when she obviously does not care at all? What is it with me with beating PBs? Why am I so competitive? Am I really competitive though? I am my own competition - I just want to run faster than my previous self (six months ago).
I guess the answer is that it keeps me going. I have this great goal to work towards, it forces me to train when I am lazy. It gives me this stupid sense of purpose. I want to get better at it. I don't think it's for the praises because I don't run so fast that everyone would be impressed by my time. People who run will know I am not a fast runner and people who don't run will have no idea how fast I am or not. So really, it's mainly for me. When (if) I eventually beat my last PB, even by a few seconds, I know I will have this strong sense of satisfaction that I can run faster than I did six months ago. And it's a great feeling knowing I can still improve and my peak has not passed. If we don't want to be better at things that we do, what do we have left? Surviving?
As to why I run, it's not very obvious. Running is often described as "boring" (it can be at times). Running as fast as you can on a very long distance is on top of that .. ..painful. It's so painful that I almost overdosed at the 2015 Paris Half-Marathon - never again! Like a kid who just had his worst hangover on alcohol and promised never to drink again, I promised never to run again.. Until one month later, I ran the last 10K of the marathon with my brother and witnessed his pain and pride. It was awesome.
I started running because I wanted to be fit and it was so easy to start running: you just need shoes and off you go! (unlike tennis for example, where you need shoes but also a partner, a racket, tennis balls, an outdoor court with good weather conditions or an indoor court, and if you have never played tennis, you'll probably need a teacher)..
Truth is, now I love running because 1. it's easier than it used to be - I am not out of breath straight away -, 2. the London parks are beautiful (Vicky park and Hyde park are my favourite) and it's the rare occasion I have to explore them 3. it's almost the only time where I don't think. It's comparable to meditation really. I don't think about friends, boyfriend, job hunting, money, family, holidays, getting a dog, my need to learn more, read more, paint more, travel more, the paperwork I did not do or the groceries I have to do. No, I just look at the road ahead of me, focus on my breathing and think about my pace. I look at my Tomtom "Damn I am too slow, I'll never beat my PB like this" or "Damn I am too fast I won't last at this pace". That's it. It's a true luxury to be able to think about nothing these days. It gets me tired too - the good tiredness, and when I am done, I am proud of the miles I have run.
It takes time to like running, so if you just started don't give up just yet. Just run more slowly.
If you are still not convinced, here is a great book about running: What I talk about when I talk about running, Haruki Murakami
And talking about books, I have just finished the best fiction I have read in ages: The Martian, Andy Weir. Could seriously not put down!
Enjoy the reading and the running, and let's try to always want to run faster (or be a better version of ourselves)!
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