Living Life With Abandon
Quit carrying around the heavy stone of worry and lay it on the side of the trail.
I was running a 50K race and had passed lots of people on a really steep uphill portion of the trail.
I was feeling really good and was focused on getting to what I knew was one of my running nemeses, a highly technical downhill stretch on a single path with lots and lots of turns, leaping over roots and even some boggy areas.
I had practiced this section specifically a couple of times coming into the race knowing that my boat-like feet and quirky ankles really didn’t enjoy this section and whereas physically I knew I was going to be able, mentally I was still struggling quite a bit.
As I got about half a mile down the trail I could hear the runners coming up behind. A number of them were just whooping it up on the hill, as they ran past me when I moved off the trail, they had great big smiles and looked like they couldn’t be happier. One twelve-year-old shouted as he passed me “You’ll never see me again” as he bounced down the hill with nary a care in the world (I didn’t see him until the finish line by the way).
