One last breath left my body, and for a fraction of a moment I felt almost enlightened, until time caught back up to me and I nearly collapse.” A beating hot sun scorches the pavement. Every rock and pebble gasped for one last breath on a saturday morning. My body aches of soreness, yet my mind is set to achieve only one thing for today. I set out to run a mile in under 8 minutes. I had little success with running a miles in the past. I always found a way to fail, but not today. My knees buckled with every step I took. My feet throbbed as I dragged myself out of bed. The sudden urge I had felt that morning to achieve success overcame every ounce of pain in my body. I not only wanted to succeed, I wanted to absolutely prove every person who doubted me wrong. I wanted to pull myself up out of the trench that was despair and my doubt for my dreamt achievement. I threw some water on my face, laced up my shoes, and started outside. With a stopwatch in my hand and an ambition of gold, I started on my journey.

Wind blew through my face and body as I tried to keep a steady pace. After what felt like an eternity, my stopwatch reads 3:00 minutes. I had only done 1 lap, and I told myself not to accept such a mediocre time. I kept saying to myself “do not stop now do not stop now”. I'm about ¾ laps in, and I can feel my knees starting to give out. My body feels like as if someone had drained all of the wind out of it. I start to slow down. The wind stops flowing. The sun is ripping through every piece of my clothes and striking me like a lightning bolt to a metal rod. I try and stay up on top of my goal and pace through it, but again I am wrapped around by the grasps of the sun, not to mention my legs haven't fully healed yet. One last breath left my body, and for a fraction of a moment I felt almost enlightened, until time catches back up to me and I nearly.  To this day I cannot explain it, but some weird feeling overcomes everything in my body. The sweat falling down my face suddenly evaporates and I start to speed up. The wind is whipping through my body now. I finish the last lap and collapse. I use my last bit of strength to turn my head over to my hand. The timer reads 7:47. I had never felt so accomplished. I had so much pride it could have filled up an entire country. I had learned a valuable lesson that day. I had learned there is nothing you can not do without just a little bit of inspiration and ambition. You can always overcome whatever you make in your mind. In my head I told myself I couldn’t run a mile under 8:00. However, halfway through my run when I told myself I could do it, that feeling overcame my pain and I pushed through all of my fears and doubts. I had taught myself a lot that day. A valuable lesson I could only pull from my personal record breaking experience.