Versions of Ourselves.

Sweat fills the crevices of my neck, seeping into the shallow hole formed by the clavicle articulating with the rib and shoulder blade. The humidity leaves moisture lingering in the air, this invisible cloud that I move through and see off in the distance, but don’t feel until after the fact; after 8km when my clothes feel wet, my fingers slippery, my sunglasses starting to fog.

There’s something unexpectedly satisfying about this sweaty, salty, humidity-driven condition that wraps around my body. I don’t crave it in the winter when the temperatures are cooler and the running flows with less friction and resistance, but deep into it in the summer, it too flows freely. Differently, but organically, like this is how it is meant to be. When I’m in it deep enough, seasoned and over the adaptation of the first few weeks, it feels so possible and accessible. This masochistic energy that makes the discomfort and the struggle just bad enough to want more of it. Or at the very least to want the feeling that floods through the system afterwards.

I used to think that I couldn’t be, wasn’t going to be, wasn’t meant to be a hot weather runner. Now I think, maybe that was the story I was telling myself and making myself believe. In reality, maybe it was just that I was resisting it and didn’t want to be because of the barriers in front that I first had to overcome. I didn’t want to wade through the discomfort it would take for it to become more comfortable, or persist through the seasons of struggle and challenge that would be needed for it to feel better and more bearable. And the last thing I ever thought was that it would become desirable. 

Discomfort breeds comfort. In the ability to persevere through a hard thing lies possibility. It holds this young piece of potential, a tenuous fragment that needs nurturing and love, patience and commitment, and above all else, belief. If you don’t believe, why should anyone else? The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and our abilities and inabilities go on to form the person we become. The version of me that exists now, running in the heat and choosing to run in 35 degrees because I know it is good for me, is a different version than the person who ran two years ago in the heat. That version couldn’t do it or even imagine doing it. But ironically, it is actually only because I did it that I can now embody this new version and progress forwards – to a new version again that I can’t  conceptualize just yet. 

It’s not a linear progression or a steady evolution, but the constant commitment to showing up and doing the thing is the only way forward. Put into play, the only option is indeed to keep moving forward. On the days when it’s hard, in the moments of doubt, during lulls in motivation, just keep going. Eventually, you look back and see an old version of yourself and wonder how you got to this place you could never imagine being.