“Almost there, almost there. You’ve got this Grace, keep going.” Those are the words that I sketch into my brain.
My ending point seems to be getting farther away from me as I run harder. I can see my breath fog up the air in front of me and disappear into the thin, dry air. The leaves crunch under my feet, the squirrels scatter, and the clouds falter as I clamper to a stop.

“Twelve minutes and five seconds.” I say out loud to myself.

My breathing is ragged and erratic, as the world spins around me in slow motion. My legs feel fatigued, my lungs are on fire, and my skin is as cold as ice.

It’s the middle of October 2015. Snow lightly dusts the grass, leaves are still falling gently to the ground, and the temperature sends most wildlife to warmer states. I’m attempting to run a mile in under 8 minutes, which I obviously failed at. It’s quite funny actually recalling this memory, because if you know anything about me, I’m not athletic in any way, shape, or form. Per usual though, I wanted to try and see how I would do and as usual, I greatly regretted it afterwards.

I wanted to take back that twelve minutes of my life and just watch the Wizards of Waverly Place marathon, but unfortunately I don’t have a time machine hidden in my bedroom closet, so I guess I’m stuck here, regretting my decision of trying to run a mile as fast as I can.

“How was your run?” my mom hollers to me, as I enter the house.

I grunt in response to her question and I can tell she is amused from seeing me miserable, because that is just how my mom is.

“I take it that means it was awful…” she chuckles under her breath.

I roll my eyes in annoyance of my mom chuckling at my pain.

“I’m going to go lay down and take a nap. My body feels like I just feel off a cliff and somehow I miraculously survived.” I grumble to my mom.

As I walk up the stairs leading to my bedroom, I can feel my muscles tightening and loosening every time I set foot onto a new step. Once again, I start thinking about how I wish I didn’t go for a run and how I would've much rather been watching Wizards of Waverly Place. I enter my room and plop down on my bed, and the next time I see the light of day was at 6:00 a.m. for school.  

As I walk from hour to hour, my legs still ache and tingle with every step I take. The day could not of gone any slower and all I could think was how I wanted to get onto my bus at the end of the day and go home.

I haven’t had that much pain and achiness since I did the one day of 7th grade track and let me just say, if I’m in that much pain that I’m comparing it to 7th grade track, that means I’m in serious pain.

Bottom line, I learned my lesson. Next time that I run, I certainly won’t do it full power mode, because I know that in the end, it probably won’t pay off like I was originally intending it to.