whines

How many ways can you come up with, to get out of something? My female owner signed up for the 10km Bridge to Brisbane and for about 2 weeks before today, she had been apprehensive about running. The plan was to run with her running buddies, both of whom are seasoned (read: faster and better) runners. She started generating escape plans:

• Standard modus operandi: Oversleep (most workable, but her friend had kindly agreed to provide transport)
• Desperate, she wondered if she should pray for rain (which she didn’t. come on, she’s not a wet blanket)
• Say she has menstrual cramps (but then, it had never been an issue)
• Pass her running tag to someone else (then again, her friends looked at her as if she is mad when she said she was going for 10km, so probably no takers…)
• Try to get sick
• Back out by saying that she signed up for the run during her psychotic episode (err.. who would believe right?)
• Just be assertive and maintain that she doesn’t want to run anymore (well… it’s not really true that she doesn’t want to run, she was just fearful of running such a long distance. She had self-limiting thoughts like she is too old already, that she will slow down her friends and cause them to wait eons for her)

As always, her whines are louder than her quiet resolve. She did attend the run (How could she back out last minute right? So old already, must be more reliable and less filmsy).

From the word go, her running buddies expectedly ran ahead of her. Hence, unlike all her past running events where her friends’ attitude was more similar to hers (“just run for fun”), my female owner ran by herself. Yet, she said it was the easiest run of all (hee, despite being the heaviest and fattest, and sleeping less than 4 hours. Plus, her dodgy knee was cooperative today). The prayer they made in the car before the run also helped to calm her down and shift her focus from her limitations to God’s provision and protection.

So anyway, she completed the run fairly smoothly and by God’s grace, her friends found her after a while. Post-running activities were meaningful too. They ended up at Sunnybank, having lunch and bubble tea (yay!). The fellowship was unlike with other social gatherings. This time, they spoke on a deeper level, a heart-to-heart connection that my female owner always valued and appreciated in her interactions with friends. Going beyond the surface, she calls it. It was such a relaxing day that she really felt as if she was on a holiday.

Reaching home at 2pm, my female owner spent the rest of Sunday comatose in bed. Old already lah. Need to recuperate.