It was the Saturday evening after the Two Oceans race and KK and I were enjoying a celebratory supper at Col’cacchio’s overlooking Camps Bay. All around us sat other runners, glaringly obvious by the fact that they were wearing their running shoes adorned with race chip, warm K-Way running tops over their Two Oceans t-shirts, but mostly by their conversation. The restaurant was a buzz of nattering about the race. Both the half as well as the ultra marathon.

As they devoured their pizza’s, runners were recalling the start where E-seeded runners managed to slip into C-seeded pens; they were giving their in-depth analysis of the new route and whether or not it was easier than the old route; some were recalling the drummers up Southern Cross Drive, while others were gasping at how the 56km runners had survived 6 hours in the rain.

It was a minute by minute, km by km, pizza slice by pizza slice analysis of each step of the race, where they had gone wrong and what they would’ve done differently. And trust me, they talked for hours, sometimes going over the same topic repeatedly as if they couldn’t talk about it enough.

If only life was like that. If only we had more time to stop and analyze what was going on in our lives, the up hills, the down hills, the times we got things right but also the times when things seemed too tough to carry on. What pulled us through? What were the highlights? The lowlights? How did we tackle issues in our lives? I don’t think we do that often enough (or even at all?)

If only we were able to analyze our lives more regularly, the way runners do after each and every race, maybe we’d be able to stop ourselves from making mistakes, from getting hurt, we could make the necessary changes. But we’d also stop more often to enjoy the good times while we were able to and celebrate our victories. We don’t do that often enough. Runners do.