The 50k run I completed last week was composed of four laps in and around Burning Man city.
The absolute hardest moment of the run happened when I was completing my third lap.
Just as I turned the corner and the checkpoint/finish line came into sight, I saw a group of around 50+ people celebrating, cheering, and lounging after having completed the run.
…They finished an entire lap ahead of me.
…And I had an entire lap to go.
…As in I had to deliberately choose to go back out into the heat, windstorms, and longgggg stretches of uninhabited desert WITH the agony of already wrecked ankles and knees when what was right in front of me looked nothing short of paradise.
…I seriously considered stopping.
….I seriously questioned my life decisions.
…I seriously wanted nothing more than to collapse and complain and lounge.
…But, something inside me told me to just keep moving.
To slowly, slowly, move away from that finish line—my checkpoint—and let the noise of paradise fade into the background… until it subtilely disappeared.
And not long thereafter, it did.
…And I was back in it.
…Undistracted by the sounds of other people’s victories and the visions of other people’s reward. I no longer had other people’s voices in my head nor did I have their relieved faces in my sight. I was free from the temptations of comfort that were trying to pull me more and more forcibly back towards its favorite zone.
…And I was running my own race again.
This was the key decision—the crux point—that got me through.
This was the moment I actually finished the race.