When I Almost Had A Baby!

"Push, come on! Push! You're doing really well, now push," he said. I say I want a break. He says I've got 5 secs... 1... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5. "Push!" And I push hard.

But wait, I'm not in the labor room. I'm running in Bangalore's Cubbon Park on a pleasant Saturday morning! What you just read was a dialogue between my husband and me midway during my attempt to run an "easy" 10K. It sure was an easy run for my runner husband, but it was more of a struggle for me.

And I ran. Jogged. Crawled. But walking was something I could not ask for. "You're a runner. Did you get up so early in the morning and come so far to WALK? RUN." Every time I asked for a 5 sec walk break, his counting went from 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... 5 to 1.2.3.4.5, 1.2.5, 1.5. Numbers started disappearing from my precious 5 seconds and the generosity came to an end with "not allowed to walk anymore." So I ran. Or I tried. And reached 9K. Somehow!

That "I'm going to die" feeling crept in. But with the constant "push" ringing in my ears, I pushed. Finally, husband said "Only 200 meters." Then "Only 100 meters." ONLY! These numbers look and feel beautiful in math, they make calculations so easy. But when it's the last bit left in a run, it's as difficult as remembering the value of pi, 3.14159 26535 89793 23846. Now you know what I mean!

My takeaway from this 10k run is that it's extremely important to run with someone. Even better if it's someone better than yourself. It might be painful, but it won't kill you! Otherwise it's easy to give up. Unless you have extraordinary will power, iron legs, and lungs of a blue whale. I don't. So I chose to run with the fastest runner in my family.

It was painful, no doubt. But as they say "No pain, no gain." Bittersweet pain, I shall see you again!