When I first started running, I used a run-walk program. In week one, I would run for 1 minute, then walk for 2 minutes, and repeat for 20 minutes. I would go about halfway around the block.
As the weeks went by and I gradually added more minutes of running and reduced the minutes walking, I would make it farther and farther around the block. Then one day, I made it all the way around, and I wasn’t finished yet.
Needing more distance, I started using a bigger block. That became “the big block” and my original route was named “the little block”. Predictably, eventually even the big block was too small. I expanded farther, so I had the little block, the big block, and the bigger block; and then there was “the big block plus that road by the grocery store,” as well as “the bigger block plus that bit by the high school.”
Now, I can go a long way using only those and their various combinations, and in some circumstances I have. But I also now run routes that require street names and directions that are more specific than “clockwise” or “counter-clockwise.”
That first day that I huffed and puffed halfway around the little block before walking the rest of the way, I never thought I would run around the big block; I certainly never realized I would need the bigger block. In fact, if someone had told me back then that I would one day be running all the way around the outside of the town, and beyond, I would have called them crazy. Yet here I am.
From time to time it is amazing to look back at where you started, and reflect on how far you’ve come.
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