It's Not About the Time?
For the past few years, it has been my joy to chug around the lovely Lake Hamilton. Through the week, I use this space to try to sort things out in my brain.
On Saturday, the whole thing shifts into a different dimension where there is a welcoming community to engage with.
Later in the day, you get this very impressive email letting you know your time, where you came in your age category and reminding you of your salad days when your personal best was so many minutes and seconds.
Up until recently, I found this email encouraging, exciting, and an inspiring challenge.
Then I had a conversation with someone from Parkrun who gently reminded me that it's not just about the time of minutes and seconds, and it’s not just about trying to appease the doctor and the bathroom scales. There is something else going on here as well.
It’s a bit hard to put into words, but the something else is about ‘being’, not doing. When the endorphins and heart rate are elevated, when the mist is rising off the lake, when the pelicans rise slowly into the sky, and the sun does make it up and warms you, you become someone just slightly different. You even smell slightly different at the end of the run. Moreover, the world is just slightly better, and the insurmountable is not quite the impossible bully that I thought it was. Just being there, in the zone and enjoying instead of worrying about the clock that is ticking is far more important.
Sure, I’ll always be curious about the numbers in that Saturday email, but now I know there’s something far more important going on. How liberating to understand that it's not about the doing and the numbers. It’s just about being.