Today I ran 10 miles and I don't run

This morning, I woke up at 3:30 AM. I work and go to school, and even if I slept 3 hours last night I still forced myself to commit. I coordinated with my friend and we met up at our local park at 4am.

"You ready?"

"Yeah, I'm ready. Let's do this"

We started running around our city, the sun was still down and there were only lone cars on the road. The air was crisp and cold, it hurt inhaling through my nose. "Just keep breathing", I said to myself. Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth...

At Mile 3 I lost all sensation in my feet. They were completely numb. I guess that's what happens when you don't run for months. The numbness quickly turned to pain, but somehow through breathing it was still bearable.

"I do this everyday bro. I'm going to be a firefighter. I am tired of the excuses, we just put in work". We took a 10 minute break, my friend set his timer and said, "Okay, now we're going to meditate". My feet thanked him for his mercy, now I had to dig deep within myself - What was I doing in the morning cold? What was I trying to prove? But more importantly, what is it inside myself that I want to change? What keeps me going forward?

"Alright, time to run again". I felt re-energized. The meditation and running combination was something I had never tried before, they seemed contrary in nature, action and inaction, yet, it worked. I felt like I had just started running. My feet felt fine and I had more energy. That feeling lasted for about 1 mile. Then, my feet started going numb again and the pain was worse than before. We didn't stop again.

"You have to put on David Goggins, listen to him while you run!". I'd heard his story before, a 297 lb man who dropped over 100 pounds in 3 months and became the 36th Navy Seal in history. He ran through stress fractures, pneumonia, running over 300 miles and setting records for pull-ups. I remember listening to his podcast and he said, "There is no finish line". This is not a workout, this is a lifestyle.

"Keep going, keep going!" I didn't know I was capable of that. The most I've run in my life was 5 miles, and that was over 3 years ago. I am out of shape, I like to indulge in the fattest burritos and burgers from time to time. Yet, we set the pace. We hydrated, we ate some snacks. And that's what we got. 10 miles completed in 2 hours. By the end of it I felt like I was going to collapse on the floor. We circled back to the park which was our starting point, by this time there were many people in the parks. My friend brought out his phone, it read "9.99 miles", we both watched it in agony just waiting for the digit to turn and the agony to be over. When it hit 10.00 miles we both celebrated nearly screaming, people looked at us like we were crazy, but we didn't pay any mind.

"Let's gooo!". I felt amazing. Not proud of what I just did, I actually just felt so energized. If my feet and hips were not hurting, I probably could have gone for another 10 miles, at least that's what I thought. My friend congratulated me in taking a step to improve my life. We sat down and meditated for another 10 minutes in the park, grounding ourselves in the grass and catching our breath.

We finished the run at 8am. My friend and I joked about how people were still asleep, snoozing their way through life. If you want to change your life it's not going to be easy. You have to get up and put in the work. Don't believe limitations that other people put on you, but more importantly don't believe the limitations you put on yourself. So many times I wanted to quit, I thought "If I don't stop now something terrible will surely happen to me", but nothing did. The only thing that happened is that a weakness living inside me died today. I woke up and fought my demons, now will you choose to wake up and fight yours?