Do something every day that scares you!

Wow, what a wet one this morning! I ventured out knowing it was raining and knowing I would get wet. But how wet! It was dark (of course) and as careful as I was to navigate around the puddles, one ankle deep one was hiding in the shadows and caught me out a beaut! Then a lorry driver thought it would be good sport to drive fast through a huuuuuuge puddle and shower me with a couple of gallons of the stuff. Ok, maybe he didn’t do it deliberately, but, it certainly felt like it. To be honest, I didn’t mind, I knew I would be home and in a hot shower in less than an hour. There are many who don’t have that luxury, those street dwellers who have to just take what shelter they can get and put up with it.

To  the subject of this post. I had that saying along with something wise about going outside the comfort zone sent to me on facebook. It’s a useful thing to think about, and I have resolved to try this, maybe not every day, but at least once a week.

Now, running in the rain doesn’t scare me, running in the dark doesn’t scare me (I tend to avoid lonely places, but the kind of people who may try to do me harm are still tucked up at 6AM right?). What scares me? Bliddy great hills! Long steep ones particularly. On my usual morning route is a hill that I tend to skirt around. It’s one of those “omygodImgonnadie” hills. According to my Garmin, it rises nearly 250 ft in less than a mile. In order to avoid this hill and make up my mileage, I tend to loop around a couple of streets - possibly to the amusement of the residents. Today, I looked up at that hill and remembered that resolve of mine and set off. I may have walked lots of it, but less than I had anticipated, and guess what! I didn’t die :)

I got home after 6.25 miles feeling right proud of myself, that’s what happens when you face your fears and realise that the fear was only of fear itself to paraphrase somebody or other! I was wetter than the wettest of wet things, but glowing with a real sense of achievement. I may well tackle that one again this week - or I may think of something else that scares me and tackle that. Not spiders, they don’t scare me - they actually TERRIFY  me. There is only so much a girl can do after all :)