At 10:15am on the 19th June 2016 I set off from home on a run.
I ran down past the school beside the tram line that I watched being built (while I was running) on the route that I had literally ran hundreds of times before.
I crossed the bridge over the river and ran down the north side of the Trent and then crossed the bridge again and ran to Holme Pierrepont.
I ran up the side of the boating lake and turned and came back. Running a course that took up large parts of the marathon I had ran the year before as part of the Outlaw Triathlon. It was cloudy and a little bit windy but not too cold. I had a little bit of a sore leg, but not too much and it was a steady run, 10 ½ miles in 45 minutes.
That was the last time that I ran.
A few weeks later an orthopedic surgeon did a fancy magnetic scan on my leg and told me my running days were over. He was right, and that was it. It was gone.
So maybe in hindsight I would of ran a little bit longer that day, a little bit fast, lifted my head a little bit more or felt the wind in my face just a little bit better. Almost everyday we are doing things for the last time and we don’t realise it. We cannot drag the best out of ourselves because we are on autopilot.
You know that old story about the teacher who stands in front of a class and asks them to put their hands up as high as they can. Once they’ve got their hands in the air as high as they can he asks them to stretch them a little bit further and inevitably they all can, just a little bit further.
Why is it we are scared to stick our hands up as far as it will go, perhaps because we don’t realise it might be our last time.
Blog post number: 1418