Breaking My Habit, Day 29: Preparation

My days are counted. I'm only a few days away from the running event (5 days to be exact). It seems that I have been neglecting my training: the last time I trained was last Tuesday. Last Thursday I had to stay late at the office (waiting for precious samples that turned out to arrive the day after) while during weekends I was just too lazy to do any meaningful work.

So today, I dedicated my whole gym session for running. I set the treadmill to 40 minutes 'weight loss' program, which would continuously switch the speed between 6, 7, and 9 kilometres per hour (kph).

I really felt like an old man as I was running. The speed was too much for me, so I ended up switching between 5, 7, and 8 kph. It was during this time that my fear started kicking in. What if I cannot finish the race on time? What if I was too tired to even finish the race? What if I.. And so on and so on.

When I think about it, all of those fears are meaningless actually. Human average walking speed is about 5 kph, so even if I walk the entire time, I would still finish the race in 1 hour. And if I walk slower than that, or even not finishing the race, then what's the problem? Should I feel ashamed, with all the crowds watching? Well..

Spongebob Realitypants

Yep, it might sound rough, but no one cares actually. Every average person is blessed with semi-invisibility in the crowd: you won't get noticed that easily. So, unless you're a public figure, there's no need to feel that insecure in public places.

With that realization, I managed to run unharmed and reach 4.04 km in 40 minutes. 5 km doesn't seem too far away now.