Two hours and fifteen minutes on my feet

Let me start with where my head was two days ago: discouraged. Sore-legged, comparing myself to some imaginary version of a runner who’d be breezing through everything by now, quietly wondering if six weeks in and still struggling meant something was wrong with me.

Then today happened.

Today I went out and stayed on my feet for two hours and fifteen minutes.

I want to be honest about how, because the how is the whole point. This was not two hours of heroic running. This was a run-walk in the truest sense — and the walks were not my usual little strategic breathers. Today the walks had a different job. The job was: as long as I’m still on my feet and moving, a little longer than before, I’m doing this. So I ran easy when I could, and I walked — sometimes for a kilometre or two at a proper walking-trail pace — when that’s what it took to keep going. And I kept going.

The average pace was slow. Gloriously, unapologetically slow. And I’ve stopped caring, because I finally understand what I was measuring wrong. Time on feet is the currency for the thing I’m training for. Comrades has a twelve-hour cutoff, and today, six weeks into a comeback, at forty-two, I covered more than a sixth of that in a single go. Nobody runs all of Comrades. They walk the hills, walk the aid stations, and keep moving for hours. Today I practised exactly that — and it turns out I can do it.

Here’s the part that matters most, though. Two days ago the discouragement told me a story: you’re behind, you’re struggling, maybe you’re not built for this. And today my own legs told a different one: you did your longest effort ever, you managed it with patience and walks and zero drama, and you finished it feeling fine. The body answered the doubt better than any amount of talking myself round could have.

The knee — the one that’s grumbled since my teens — I forgot it was even supposed to hurt. Didn’t notice it once. My lower back is having a quiet word now that I’ve sat down, and I’m listening to that one carefully, because backs earn respect. But the legs? The legs did something today they’ve never done before.

Two days ago I nearly wrote myself a discouraging verdict. Today I filed a very different report: still here, still moving, two hours and fifteen minutes richer, and a lot harder to discourage than I was on Thursday.

Slow is not the problem. Slow, for two hours and fifteen minutes, is the whole plan working.