KEY POINTS:
Negative self-talk is something we could all do without. "You need to get drunk because you're sad." "You look pregnant in that dress." "There's another wrinkle just above your top lip." "You can stop running now, you've done 20 minutes, what's another 10, just a waste, you're too fat to run this long, you look ridiculous, there's that first hint of a stitch and you can always make up for it tomorrow by running longer. Stop, go on, stop!"
So there I was, at exactly that stage of negative self-talk, trying to cross the 30-minute barrier I had been negatively self-talking myself out of for two weeks. I had come in at 25 minutes, 27 minutes and once at 29 minutes, but never the 30. I had runner's block.
I glanced behind to see where the dog had got to. As readers well know, the dog doesn't do 30 minutes, nor 20 minutes. She does 10 minutes then just hangs, resting her ageing hips and waiting for the moment when I stop, pant, lie on the ground and roll on my back with my legs in the air.
But instead of my dog I saw a woman running after me with all the urgency of a cow caught in labour on the way to the milking shed. Bugger. This would mean stopping at 20 minutes and today was the day I was definitely going to make the half-hour. Today I was banishing the negative talk. Today was 30 day. I had instructed my husband to come to the park and wave at me like an idiot when 30 minutes was up because I was not going to look at my watch and only when the waving started would I permit my legs to stop.
"Did you want me?" I inquired, breathless.
"Your dog has done a big poo on the other side of the park and I have marked it with a tennis ball."
"Where?" I asked the tennis ball heiress.
"Over there!" she pointed in the vague direction of the other end of the park, about a kilometre away.
"I'm sorry, I can't quite see," I added, leaning in close, all the better to make sure my reeking armpits were emitting the best whiff of sweat.
"O... ver... there!" she screeched, obviously at an emotional ebb.
"Oh, right. Thanks," I said, jogging off deciding to give her a leave pass for hormonal activity madness and waving my doggy bag reassuringly.
But as I rounded the corner I looked back to see that she had a pair of binoculars trained on me, determined to witness the act of dog-poo collection. I wasn't sure if the lumps signposted for me by the tennis ball even belonged to my dog, who had already delivered two dumps dutifully collected by myself.
I kept running. Right back to the binocular-clad, highly strung woman.
"Hey!" I shouted. "Hold on a minute. I want to talk to you," I yelled, clutching my bag of dog poo.
She stood her ground nervously.
"What is your name?" I asked.
"I don't have to tell you that," she answered, peeved.
"No, I need your name because I want to nominate you for a New Zealand Herald Unsung Hero award. We need more people like you keeping our parks clean. What's your name?"
"I don't want to tell you, go away."
"No, you are going to tell me because you interrupted my time in my park to get me to do something I would have done anyway. You've done something for me and now I want to return the favour. I want to give something back, yin and yang, karma, that sort of thing."
"Go away, leave me alone," she shouted, retreating quickly. I followed. She ran, I ran, the dog watched.
I haven't seen her since. The next day I did 35 minutes.
Karma.
