Run Run Run

At precisely 5:45, the coach had solemnly walked into the court and quietly surveyed the ten of us who were joking around. He spoke quietly also:
- We will do stamina today. You will run around this court as usual.
- But, Sir, how many laps do we have to do? – I asked
He made a small smile, held my eyes for a moment, and answered simply,
- Just keep running.

And so we started running, wondering about the abnormality of his order. Usually he would just ask us to run five laps for warm-up before practice, and usually he wouldn’t smile when he made his order. As the pace quickened, however, I quit thinking about that; I had, as coach said, to keep running.

“This is physically impossible!” – I whined. But then I looked around at my friends for the first time in awhile and was amazed: although five of them had given up, the rest were still running, running and running. What I was doing was absolutely not impossible, as I could plainly see right in front of my eyes. There always are choices for us to make in life, and the choices are always ours. And I made mine. I would not give up. I would not be a quitter, I thought. But it wasn’t as easy as a spontaneous decision . It seemed like there was a clash inside of my head; a fight between the “I can’t do its” and the “Don’t give ups.” My body cheered for the former (with my legs being the loudest cheerleader) and my heart backed the latter. The fight was long and painful. Whenever my almost-numb foot touched the ground, I was distressed by “I can’t do it,” only to revive a bit when “Don’t give up” gave me a Snicker bar made of positive thoughts.

However, it was 6.45 in the morning I was still running like a dog.