Running on Positivity

Hey guys

Just wanted to write a little post while the disaster that was this morning is still fresh in my mind, actually to be fair, I am not likely to forget it in a hurry.

My partner and I always joke about my want to be a life coach as I am constantly finding myself in awkward situations, but the way I see it how could I ever understand other peoples woes if I haven't experienced a few of my own.

This morning was a whopper even by my standards.

Today I took part in the annual City to Surf race which is held all over Australia. I had signed up to do the 12k and I was super pumped. I did it last year and really enjoyed it so I was up with the lark at 6am this morning in preparation. I wanted to give myself plenty of time to get there on time with minimal stress.

I had a look at the bus times last night and figured out that there was none from my street that were convenient so the best plan of action was to walk to the nearest highway and catch one from there...easy peasy right? Wrong.

Long story short I walk to two different bus stops, no buses. Kept walking into the city got on the wrong bus ended up the other side of the city. Now by this time I was starting to freak out. I had 6 minutes to get to the start line and no way to get there (UBER I hear you cry, yes that would have been a good idea, I agree). The only viable option I could think of was to get off the bus and run as fast as I could to the start line.

This race attracts THOUSANDS of people, by the time I got to the start line the streets were empty, the only thing filling them were discarded items of clothing from the runners post warm up. The only people on the street were the volunteers who were starting to open the roads. My throat started to swell up and the anxiety was almost unbearable. in my head I was berating myself so badly for messing this up. At this stage what I thought was going to be a short brisk walk to the bus stop ended up being an approximate 7k walk\panicked run to the start line.

Distraught and exhausted I started the desenct of the first hill (seriously who starts a race on a hill). My anxiety was screaming at me to just give up and go home, a failure. It was a nightmare I was dead last in a race of THOUSANDS of people and just when I thought it couldn't get any worse out of the corner of my eye I spied blue flashing lights.

I had a police escort. The road had been opened behind me as I was almost an hour behind everyone else. All I could think of was that movie Run Fat Boy Run. The (very kind) Police man pulled up beside me, a little confused as to why I was so sweaty already and maybe as to why I was dead last already. I wanted to ground to open up and swallow me. As he spoke to me all I could think was don't cry Aisling, do NOT fucking cry. The stress of the morning had taken over and I was so mortified and anxious at that stage that I couldn't see how I was going to be able to continue.

I had every intention of slipping off to a side road as soon as he was out of sight but then I remembered the all the positive lessons I have learned over the years, I started to repeat them to myself and do some breathing exercises and somehow I just kept putting one foot in front of the other, calmed down and started to enjoy the experience.

I forced myself to look at the positives of the situation. It was a beautiful sunny day, I had this time to exercise, listen to my super awesome Spotify playlist and of course I would have a funny story to tell at the end.

I finished the race, beating my time from last year and by the time I finished there were hundreds of people behind me, but the best thing I took from the day was that I successfully turned an absolute disaster into something positive and that is what I am most proud of.

Would I do it again, absolutely, but I think next time I will definitely be ordering an uber to the start line.

Photo Credit -runandlivehappy.com