Karen writes: Chocolate moment
21km into a 34km run on Sunday morning I was slogging along the main road out of Maraetai heading towards Whitford Forest. I was tired and getting grumpy. The cars were whizzing past, I was dusty and sticky and not keeping up with my nutrition plan and I was aware I still had a long way to go.
It's all about head games. I was playing a game spotting anything more interesting on the roadside than empty cigarette packets and the new most common item of litter, the disposable coffee cup. I'd already picked up a nice water bottle and figured out how to attach it to my waist pack alongside the two I already had and I had played mad smiley runner with the cyclists but I was contemplating turning around and going back home. Then I saw something shining in the distance. A tiny glimmer on the grey tarseal background, it sparkled in the intermittent sunlight, what was it? My legs plodded out more distance, that looks like a Roses chocolate. It was, as I drew nearer I could see this solitary piece of confectionery, it reclined wrapped and complete in it's distinctive wrapper, pristine twisted ends perpendicular to the edge of the road like it had been arranged just so, and a delicate scatter of small stones lay around it. There was a sheen of moisture on it from the overnight rain.
Fortunately it wasn't one of my favourites, otherwise I can't guarantee that I might not have made the slightly gross decision to pick the thing up and put it out of it's chocolate misery. I kept running, the odd image of that solitary Rose kilometers from anywhere kept me company for some time to come and I completely forgot I wanted to give up.
It's all about head games. I was playing a game spotting anything more interesting on the roadside than empty cigarette packets and the new most common item of litter, the disposable coffee cup. I'd already picked up a nice water bottle and figured out how to attach it to my waist pack alongside the two I already had and I had played mad smiley runner with the cyclists but I was contemplating turning around and going back home. Then I saw something shining in the distance. A tiny glimmer on the grey tarseal background, it sparkled in the intermittent sunlight, what was it? My legs plodded out more distance, that looks like a Roses chocolate. It was, as I drew nearer I could see this solitary piece of confectionery, it reclined wrapped and complete in it's distinctive wrapper, pristine twisted ends perpendicular to the edge of the road like it had been arranged just so, and a delicate scatter of small stones lay around it. There was a sheen of moisture on it from the overnight rain.
Fortunately it wasn't one of my favourites, otherwise I can't guarantee that I might not have made the slightly gross decision to pick the thing up and put it out of it's chocolate misery. I kept running, the odd image of that solitary Rose kilometers from anywhere kept me company for some time to come and I completely forgot I wanted to give up.
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