Running Your Own Race | What The Lagos City Marathon Taught Me

Over the weekend I participated in my first ever marathon. OK that might be a slight exaggeration, I actually  participated in my first 10k. But  I’m getting side tracked now so back to my story. I turned up at that marathon to cheer for my sister. She’s a former track athlete and lives for this sort of thing. I on the other hand, hate running and had absolutely no intention of participating but was guilt-tripped by my mother into participating in solidarity. I hadn’t trained or built up the fitness level to jog for 10km so I settled into a brisk walk, put on a podcast and willed myself to put one foot in from of the other.

I forced myself to ignore the hundreds of people that ran ahead of me and the bystanders telling me to “go faster” even though if I’m honest it frustrated me at times. The reality of what I had chosen to embark on hit me several times throughout my 2-hour trek and the only thing that kept me going was my own stubbornness to accept defeat. And even my own stubbornness began to frustrate me with every sweeper bus that passed by asking me if I wanted to hop on for a ride to the finish line. Yes of course I wanted to hop on and give up several times, but I knew I never would let myself do that.

The tug-of-war between my thoughts of “why can’t I go faster like everyone else?” versus “it doesn’t matter how fast you go as long as you can’t give up” made me think about life and comparison. If I had been walking completely on my own in isolation this wouldn’t even be a topic of discussion. I wouldn’t have cared that I wasn’t as fast as everyone else. In fact I possibly wouldn’t have bothered to even complete the 10km at all if I was doing this on my own. But the point is because I was running a “race” which by its very nature is competitive, comparison seeped in and attempted to ruin what was in actual fact a leisurely stroll.

I eventually crossed the finish line after 2 hours but I personally didn’t care how long it took me to cross that finish line or I was just proud of myself that I did. And that to me showed a lot of personal growth because I haven’t always thought like this. Like most people I’ve wasted so much time comparing my looks, accomplishments, bank accounts, relationships etc. to everyone else around me and beating myself up for not measuring up. The fear of “running behind” has made me make some incredibly stupid choices in life and placed me on a path of  self doubt until I accepted the obvious reality that I AM MY OWN PERSON. Everyone and every story is different.

I don’t know what those people who ran ahead of me did to prepare do the marathon the same way those people telling me to run didn’t know my story. Living a life where you constantly focus on what you haven’t done or don’t have is a miserable life. The only person it makes sense to compare yourself to is the person I was the day before.

I was able to relish in my accomplishment of completing my first 10k simply because of I had learned to accept myself and my own journey. So here’s a reminder to keep putting one foot in front of the other until you cross your own finish line.

Thank you for reading.