#30Days30Layers, March 2020: Day 3 —Fill The Hour

One of my favorite poems of all time is Rudyard Kipling’s “If.” I appreciate it because it keeps things in perspective and reminds people of how to properly move and make moves in life.

There are so many quotables within that poem — “If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you/ yet give allowance for their doubting, too” is a personal favorite — but towards its end, there’s one line in particular that always stood out to me:

“If you can fill the unforgiving minute, with sixty seconds’ worth of run.”

Think about that for a second. I would never consider a minute, a fraction of time of that, to be considered something that’s “unforgiving.” Unforgiving is such a brutal adjective. It suggests that it’s going to be grueling. It suggests that it’s going to require work. It suggests that, if you run, these might be sixty of the hardest seconds of your life.

So if a minute is unforgiving, what is an hour? If you fill an hour with sixty minutes, does that make an hour… unbearable?

It wasn’t until I started running, literally, that I fully understood this phrase. For the last two months or so now, I’ve started running with this run group in Houston, the ZFT (Zone Fitness Training) Run Group. They run on a weekly basis on the weekends, and then we’re asked to do “treadmill runs” on our own during the week. I initially started showing up for ZFT back at end of Spring 2019, when they would alternate Wednesdays doing either a sprints course or a hills course. But I never considered myself a “runner.” I arguably still don’t, because my speed isn’t nearly where I would like it to be, and I haven’t ran races on as consistent a basis as my run group peers. I did, however, run in my first 5K race.

Once you run for real, you realize how valuable time is, and how much can happen in time. I completed my 5K in about 31 minutes. I ran 3.1 miles in 31 unforgiving minutes. It gets more and more grueling with each half-mile if your legs aren’t used to it. And even if when they do become used to it, at some point, your humanity is going to make itself known — whether that’s exhaustion, or your legs getting tired, or your breathing gets heavier. But then, you time yourself, right? At the moment, my average time spent per mile is in the neighborhood of 10 minutes and 30 seconds. Most of the people I run with have a much faster time per mile (“pace” is the proper time). For example, one person I know can complete a 5K in about 20 minutes. That’s less than 7 minutes per mile, which is NUTS. But still others have completed that distance in an even faster amount of time.

Running has made me learn to appreciate how I go about filling my hours. Because you don’t realize how much time has passed until your headphones are on and mid-run, you hear, “You’ve completed ___ miles” or “Distance: __ miles, time: ___.” And then you think about how much ground you’ve covered, literally, in that amount of time. How much MORE ground you could cover in even more time. It makes you think about whether or not you’re using your time efficiently, especially given that your time is not even yours for real. You’re just taking up space until your next existence. So while you are, are you making it worth it? For every sixty seconds you’re given, are you making the most of it? Are you being productive? And if you could stand to be more productive, would you? Would you push yourself? Would you will yourself?

The thing about running is, it’s become lightly addictive to me. Once I hit that first mile, I want to keep going. We tend to set a distance for how long we’re supposed to run every weekend. Let’s say the distance is, like, 6 miles (the actual distance of a 10K). Once you hit that first mile, it’s like, boom, I made it — let’s get to mile 2. Get to mile 2 — alright, I made it, let’s keep going. Mile 3, we halfway there. Mile 4, you’re already further than you expected to get, but got further to go still. Mile 5, home stretch, and if you haven’t been feeling it up until now, you DEFINITELY are now… but Mile 6 is right there anyway, so you might as well finish it.

I’ve learned that’s how I have to approach life as well. You take it by the mile. You run your race, at your pace and no one else’s. And maybe, gradually, your pace improves. Your race feels less like a chore and more like something with a purpose. And before you know, you’re already further than you expected you get. So you might as well keep going. You’ll never realize how much gets done in “sixty seconds’ worth of run” until you start running. Not just literally, but seriously. Kipling’s poem suggests this, too, because what does he cite as the reward for completing that unforgiving minute?

“Yours is the Earth, and everything that’s in it.”

**I’m attempting GG Renee’s “All The Many Layers” writing prompts for the month of March. You can find the complete list here.