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I remember we were just approaching winter and fitness enthusiasts were singing the song "Summer Bodies Are Made in Winter". The beat to this song always hit hard to those who spend winter eating like we get curation rewards for constantly eating.
While busy shopping on a Saturday noon, I came across a race flyer and I immediately danced to the fitness tune. I thought the 21 km race was a great chance for self-improvement in running a half marathon and burn some of the winter calories. More importantly, I had justification for getting myself a new pair of trainers to catch up on my jogging that I have been lagging for an entire semester.
I ended up spending more than I budgeted for on that day but went home feeling proud that this was "justified" since my old running shoes were starting to look like a combination of Bootees and Chinese Lotus shoes. That is how much I used to run back in the day and being a heel striker my outsole suffered the most.
While others were boasting about their Daily Target Runs on their WhatsApp status, I did little beyond the occasional jogging and walking. I planned to catch up on most of it during the race. Six months of little to no exercise had taken their toll and naïve me hadn’t realized that my endurance and stamina have decreased dismally. I thought watching Usain Bolt on YouTube was enough mental training and I trusted the motivational speakers that say successful people invest 80% mindset and 20% hardwork.
Race day dawned. And I was not bothered seeing a lot of ladies in Rundies. I was minding my own business and my inner voice said: "Let them do their thing and you do you Humbe". I swear that was not a challenge to gravity, it was supposed to be a random voice in my head praising me for covering every inch of my legs from the sun and eagle eyes. To solve the see-through problem, I planned on layering two pants, a short tight first and then layer it with a long tight.
I had the caution not to reveal much from the thin tight material outsmart my common sense. Guess what? Both tights were made of spandex fabric. A few minutes after the racing gun went off, my long tight was divorcing my waist to elope with gravity to pursue their love affair. OMG! The two were flirting with every step I took acting like star-crossed lovers, I could hear gravity saying "come closer" to my long tights and I had to forcibly pull it up.
The silly gravity did not care, it continued eyeing my long tights and was making it slide down towards it. I kept hearing the motivational speaker "Les Brown" saying DO NOT GIVE UP! I continued running like "Sister Bernard" and pulling up the silly tights every five minutes knowing perfectly that if it slides to my knees, It's game over - I would meet face to face with the ground!
After 10km, we finally got to mobile toilets and I decided to fix the blunder. Minding hygiene took me close to 5 minutes to remove the small tight and squeeze it into my running belt. Finally, I felt a euphoric sense of freedom and I was getting some dopamine spikes to finish the next 10 km. But then we had a steep hill and I had 5 km left to go. I was struggling midway after exhausting all energy up the hill.
I somehow managed to stumble across the finish line in 2 hours and 52 minutes just before the cut-off time at 9:00. I got to understand why most female runners would rather run in Rundies than tights. And I ended up with another good reason to invest in high-quality tights for for the next race. Another valuable lesson was to train for the next race or I may reach the finish line in a sag wagon (loser bus)!
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