Blog

“Tell me at what point we will start running again.” It was my first time running ten kilometres with Coach Michelle, of which the first three kilometres were basically all uphill. I had just asked for a walking break when she asked the aforementioned question. I must’ve frowned at her in response… “We cannot walk indefinitely. Commit to a point where we will start running again.” I cannot recall which point I picked, and later on, she started picking points for me ‘cause I was obviously too indecisive - or too tired. But afterwards, this concept of committing to start running again was a take-home for me from that first ten kilometres of running with Michelle. ...

An observation from my run with Michelle on Friday was that I don’t push myself nearly hard enough. There were many times during that run I desperately wanted to run slower. And I would’ve… if it wasn’t for Michelle’s persistent pushing. I shared this observation with Michelle. She said: “You need to learn to push yourself. It comes from your intrinsic motivation which you need to get in touch with.” ...

I didn’t come to write, I believe, in the same fashion other authors did. I’ve never attended literature school - although I love languages and have always enjoyed reading. When I started therapy, the first in-depth discussion point between myself and my therapist was the relationship between my sister, who committed suicide, and me. My therapist wanted me to imagine myself going to heaven and fighting out all my issues with her. “Get rid of the anger,” he said. ...

When we watch the ending of a movie or read the final chapter of a book, it is easy to assume that the rest of the story will continue that way: “And they lived happily ever after…” But real life doesn’t work that way - we can arrive but not stay forever. Yet, that seems to be the expectation and, I believe, a lie we tell ourselves. Yes, we get to end projects - and the world can certainly do with more people completing what they’ve started - but what happens after the end is more important - and perhaps the more difficult journey. ...

Edna’s interview with me. We talk about my book, Eighty kilos of Shame, specifically two chapters that resonated with Edna. She didn’t tell me beforehand which two chapters, which made the interview very interesting…

You are invited. Yes, that time is correct. Yes, I am going to be there for a while if you cannot make 7:30, no problem. Yes, I will bring copies of my first book (both English and Afrikaans versions) as well. Card facilities will be available.

It’s, I believe, too early into the new year to already feel like I just want to stay in bed, and especially like I do not want to exercise. Yet, here I am, feeling this way already on the 5th day of the year. The rain is of course not helping. It scares me when days like these make me feel like nothing I do works and make me wonder if it all really is worth it. All the early mornings… All the exercises that I cannot do, yet try my best to get right… All futile… ...

For the third consecutive week, my Wednesday training brief is a 60-minute run with a 20-minute faster finish. The first time I attempted this session with a mindset of: I always fail when attempting a faster finish, but I’ll try… I didn’t mess it up completely, but I ran out of oomph when it mattered. The second time I tried rectifying some of my previous mistakes. I reckon I ran that session rather well. My split graph resembled a faster finish, even though I was still in the red zone and not meeting the last 20 minutes’ required pace. ...

As it turns out, running 15 km after nearly five weeks of not running further than 10 km is not as easy as one-two-three. (I wanted to say “as easy as riding a bike”, but I didn’t want to offend any cyclists.) Despite sticking to a low heart rate zone and not pushing myself, I found today’s 15 km run challenging. Strictly speaking, I did do more than my workout brief - the slightest of slightly more. Today’s workout was supposed to be only two hours long, but when two hours had elapsed, I had two kilometres left to reach 15, so I decided to go for it. ...