Just breathe: a meditation on positive thinking

I can’t be sick. I can’t be sick. I can’t be sick, says the little voice in my head. Just ten days left. I can’t be sick.

Just breathe, responds my inner dialogue writer. Just breeeeathe. Visualise feeling good. Climbing. Feeling good. Going downhill. Feeling good. In the middle of the night going downhill. Boom! Compound fracture. Bone sticking out of your leg and everything.

No, no, no. Get that OUT of your head. You are not going to fall. You are going to take it easy. Enjoy the scenery. Joke around with the other runners about how bad you smell. About how the pasta is sooo good. Thaaat’s it. You got this. Just don’t stress.

But I’m sick… And what if I fall asleep and fall off the side of a mountain?

What if my knees hurt so much from all the downhills, that I can’t go on? I don’t want Eric to have to wait for me. I know he SAYS he wants to do this together, but I KNOW he wants to do well. We say that we just want to finish, but wouldn’t it be so much better to finish on Friday?

If I can’t keep up, I’ll just tell him to go on without me. But will he? Of course, I want to do well too, but I will accept it if I have to pass 6 hours resting in a life base. I might even like it. It must be like a spa for zombies in those places. Stinky, sweaty, dirty people with nasty feet. 30 of these guys snoring and farting in a small mountain cabin. What’s worse, heading out into the pouring rain in the middle of the night, or grabbing a cot next to one of these guys for a couple of hours?

I might be the smelliest one of them all! They would leave that place complaining to their buddies about that chick who smelled like rotting meat and farted like a Clydesdale that slept next them. That would be almost worth the compound fracture and the head trauma.

Noooo. Get that out of your head. That is NOT going to happen.

You are going to breathe. Just breathe. Don’t think of your legs. Definitely, don’t think of your knee. Just relax. Relax your legs. Relax your back. Just breathe. No matter how long you are climbing, just try to keep your breath regular. This is why you are here. You signed up for this. You know how to tolerate discomfort. But will I be able to convince myself that the excruciating pain in my knees is “discomfort”? The bone poking out of my thigh, will that be discomfort?

THERE. WILL. BE. NO. BONES!

… just breathe