January 30th, 2016: My father passed away.
This came out of nowhere, and hit me and my siblings hard. He was a good man and deserved more time in this world.
January 31, 2017, a year and a day to the date: I'm participating in a 10 minute race (complete as many laps as possible in those ten minutes). This race is "graded" and anything under 9 laps is considered a failure, continuing to 25 laps and over which is the best "grade" one can obtain.
I'll note I'm not physically fit... at all. A simple run up the stairs can have me catching my breath.
Lap 5 and I'm already winded, there's a cramp in my side and I'm ready to give up. My thoughts drift to my father. I become sad for a moment, before realizing how he'd be disappointed with such a meager performance. So I ignore my sadness. I ignore the cramp in my side.
And I keep running.
I managed to hit 20 laps in those ten minutes. I was sweating, my side hurt, my face was red, I could hardly catch my breath and swallowing hurt. But goddamn if I wasn't so proud of myself.
And I'll be damned if my dad wouldn't have been proud too.
Submitted February 01, 2017 at 03:14AM by GooseRider960 http://ift.tt/2kNPb3B
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