Mind power.

This mornings 5.4km was hard, really hard. Savage westerly wind, just after starting Giz dropped back and when I turned my head to see where he was I strained my right calf again. It was cold so I had trackies and a hoodie on which seemed to add to a feeling of tightness in my muscles because of the extra restriction on my movement they caused. I thought about my friend who is aiming for a PB in a 5km race today. I thought about not hating, resenting and fighting the wind, but loving it as I ran against its resistance to my efforts. I sought to draw from internal or seemingly super-natural strength as I have in the past, but it was so hard and I knew it was slow. The final {30 minute} update on my phone pinged, I could barely here it, but I heard the dreaded phrase: "Average pace; six...." for the first time in months I was going to miss my goal (average pace less than 6 minutes per kilometre, minimum 5 kilometres). "Oh Hell NO!!!" I thought, "Not today, I am not going to fail today; no, fucking, way." And that was it. I simply forgot all the pains, fatigue and doubt and ran as hard as I could for the final two minutes. I hit the virtual stop button on my phone at the imaginary finish line; "Average pace; five minutes, fifty-eight seconds per kilometre." I had tried all the usual things to reach my goal, but in the end I achieved the seemingly impossible simply through the practice of allowing my mind to overcome the matter. Mind power, it is real and it works, this for me proved it...