Screw it Let’s Do it.

Deciding to overcome the heavy, miserable weather, and just get on with it! So I went for a run….

Today’s just been ‘one of those days’. Dark, grey, ominous clouds outside. Constant, fine drizzle and pedestrians sauntering miserably through crestfallen streets.

You know what I mean. Those days that make you want to sit and wallow in your own self-pity, huddled in a duvet longing for some rays of light to penetrate the sky. Any rays. Please. PLEASE! Even if it’s just one or two…

Problem is, you see, I live in Southport. 70% of the bloody time it’s ‘one of those days’. But today I snapped. I’d had enough. So I took matters into my own hands.

What did I do? That’s right. I turned to my bookshelf, as you do. And just before I gave up my search for something interesting to read to return to my wallowing, an old book by Richard Branson caught my eye.

I didn’t pull it down to read. I just spied the title; Screw it, Let’s do it!’.

Hmm. Wise words Dick. Very wise words.

There must be something, anything, I could apply this motto to today. There must be some kind of goal I can just get to work on. Screw everything else!

…Of course! My jogging had slipped behind a bit recently. It’s not something I’ve been doing for long, but at the back of my mind I’ve always wanted to say I’ve run 10km. It’s not much to most runners out there, but it’s an achievement, right?

Did I have any obstacles? Of course! Who doesn’t?

• I hadn’t really run at all for a couple of weeks
• I’d never run close to 10km before
• The weather was miserable. Wind, driving rain. Hell
• And I’d got a sore back from sleeping funny the night before

But as the motto goes, Screw it, Let’s do it.

So I did.

I whacked on the shorts and my finest pair of trainers. Twisted in the earphones, and pressed play to the Forrest Gump sound track (no joke!), and started running.

My mind made a pact with my body that if it quitted; if it gave in to pain, I would out-rightly disown it. I would toss it into the gutter like an empty coke can. No matter how loudly my legs were yelling at me to stop, I wouldn’t listen.

I’d just keep going until the 10km was done. No point putting something off I could ‘probably’ achieve right now, I guess.

Well, in the end, there was no need to worry. There was no need to slowly build up to the 10km mark. There was no need to wait for good weather. I just put my mind to it, and didn’t stop until it was done. And after 7km, I even started to enjoy it! I even considered carrying on, but thought the heaviness of my legs might’ve been a sign to cop out graciously.

The lesson? Just get on with things.

It doesn’t matter how difficult they might seem, or how high they’ve been put on that pedestal for us to just gaze at longingly and wish, just wish, we had the patience to climb up to them.

Things are rarely as hard as we or others make them out to be. And It’s surprising just what the mind and body is capable of if we simply don’t give it any other choice.

So yea, this miserable, crestfallen day did, in the end (and once I’d decided to forget about all that negativity), allow me to achieve something I’d wanted to do for months.

And guess what… I might even do it again!

Just not quite yet. I reek. I need a shower. And a lie down..