A Funny Thing Happened on the Treadmill...

Today I did a three mile run on the treadmill at my school. I started out at a 6 mph pace (10 minute mile) for the first half-mile, then increased my speed to 6.5 mph (9:13 minute mile) for the rest of the duration.

For whatever reason, the run started feeling difficult after I was about 1.24 miles in. I was wondering if I was going to be able to finish. I kept trying to pump myself up, remind myself that I can make it, but I kept having a nagging voice in my head telling me that the run is just too hard today. Maybe I should just quit. I ignored the voice and kept on running.

Two miles passes, and I'm happy with my time, but my heart feels like it's about to jump out of my chest and run away. The voice keeps nagging me, telling me "It's okay if you can't finish today. We all have bad days, you can just pick it up next time." Another voice in my head kept pushing me along, saying "YOU'RE TRAINING FOR A 10K! HOW ARE YOU GOING TO RUN 6.2 MILES IF YOU CAN'T RUN FOR 3!"

I get to 2.4 miles and the nagging voice is now screaming at me: "THIS IS TOO FUCKING HARD! YOUR LEGS ARE SCREAMING IN PAIN! YOU SHOULD JUST STOP! IT'LL BE OKAY! LOOK, WE ALL HAVE BAD DAYS! YOU CAN PICK IT UP AGAIN NEXT TIME!"

Outside, my real voice was screaming with desperation. "C'mon! You can do this! Keep running!" I was so loud that the one other person in the gym was staring at me like I had lost my mind. Despite the positive affirmations, it's usually what I scream to myself just before I quit. My voice doesn't sound confident. It's desperate. It's begging. I was sure that I wasn't going to finish.

But I had another voice nagging at my subconscious. It wasn't speaking to me in words, just in my emotions. The feeling kept nagging at me until finally it found the words to use.

"You've been down that road too many times before. You know what it feels like to quit. The pain, the disappointment, the self-loathing, they all will hurt worse than if you run this race until the end. You can either quit now and hate yourself for it, or you can keep running and feel proud that you finished."

I keep going.

It's a 2.8 miles I start thinking I might actually make it. "You can do this. You have less than 2 minutes left. Suck it up, you're going to make it."

At 28:02, I finish. An average pace of 9:20.66 per mile.

Proud of my run, I post my time on Facebook. Later, my mom joked about my run, saying "Wow, you were running pretty fast. Who was chasing you?"

"The nagging voice in my head that kept telling me that it was too hard and I should just quit and go home. That's who was chasing me."

And I outran that fucking fuck.

I'm also down to 277 pounds. Enjoy the video.