13.34°C

When my right leg refused to run

When my right leg refused to run

Sometimes the body simply refuses to cooperate

During the second kilometer, my legs refused to cooperate.

I had intended to run the first kilometer in less than six minutes. I had visualized it the previous night. I was going to run the entire kilometer without stopping. My legs were going to carry me reliably and speedily. My footsteps were going to resound in the 4am stillness with the even regularity of a decent speed. My heartbeat was going to beat in unison with the steps, steadily and calmly. My breathing wasn’t going to be all over the place. Rather, it was going to hum with the evenness of steady, calm running.

None of the above happened. I stopped three times during that first kilometer. I ran with a stomp bereft of grace. Think of a rhino charging. That was me in the first kilometer. I completed it in six and a half minutes. I then completed the second kilometer in 6.58 minutes. This was already slower than a few days earlier. It was during the third kilometer that my right ankle made it clear that it wasn’t in a running mood.

You would have thought that an invisible sack of potatoes was weighing it down. I knew then that this was going to be more of a walk than a run. That’s when I decided to instantly transition into a dawn walk as opposed to a dawn run. That way, I wasn’t going to spend the remaining one hour frustrated that I couldn’t run. Instead, I was going to relish the walk; to enjoy that 5AM breeze slapping my face with its characteristic softness.

When I arrived at K-Mall, I noticed a commotion at the gate. Within moments, several young men were bending to pick stones. Sh@*t! I muttered as I instantly started running, not even jogging.

What if during my runs I can use such tricks to inject speed into my legs?

Author’s Posts