Motivation - a love story Part 2

"Oh, damn", I thought, suddenly amazed at my ability to speak in tongues. My high school English teacher would be proud.

The love of my life, Motivation, had disappeared in the trance of time. Some might say she wasn't mine alone.

Ha! She was. There was something different about My Moty. When the going had been good Motivation was my friend to accompany me, a runner, through races thick and thin. But now when I was injured, sick and sore she was gone. A rough diamond who couldn't handle things when the going got tough.

I was haunted by that song by Lennon and his bodgy-headed mates from Liverpool, "There's something in the way she moves..." Oh, so true. She moves alright, but not when I wanted her to and to places I knew not where. Which planet, which galaxy, which universe? I know men are from Mars and women are from god-knows-where but THIS was ridiculous!

Where had she gone? I had looked long and hard, yet I was left bereft. Things were at their worst. But isn't it strange that when things are at their worst that suddenly clarity - an epiphany - comes to us to show us the way through the puzzle.

Lance Armstrong said in is bestseller "It's not about the bike" that the irony of his chemotherapy treatment for cancer was the worse he felt, the better he got.

It is a bit like that for runners, too, missing their motivation. So often in running and in life all the world's nastiness can hit us all at once. Not nice. I felt like that after running the Boston marathon earlier this year when I got injured.

Yet I decided to use some reverse psychology on myself. I was feeling miserable and relying on others to get me out of the bog. In the end I felt that I 0nly I could get myself moving. And that's when I had the epiphany. That's when I said "stuff this", I was not going to allow myself to feel sorry for myself because I couldn't run. I was going to reverse the strength of those negative feelings to bounce upwards...

...certainly that is what I decided when it came to me and my absent lover, Motivation. Typically, when I became more positive in my thinking, Good News, another friend, raised her beautiful, beautiful head. She told me about Saffron.

And Saffron, the yellow fairy, one of those spunky little flitty things I had spoken to at the bottom of my garden told me about Motivation. There had been a sighting. "Oh, yus, yus," I cried, punching the air.

Motivation, she said, could be found in the Enchanted Forrest of Lost Hopes and Repressed Marathon Desires. Motivation was there with another flaky one called Cinderella. Both were in the said Forrest sipping caramel lattes and bemoaning their bad luck with the men of this world (or at least some world!).

Motivation and Cinderella were real girl friends, as only girls can be. They shared a fetish over shoes: Cinderella with ...well... at that stage she didn't have any. Motivation, of course, had her tailor-made size eight Brooks Adrenaline running shoes. (Please note, I say "hers" but they were actually unisex running shoes we both wore, such was the relationship we had.)

Oh, they could be catty too. Privately Motivation always felt that Cinderella's obsession with pumpkin carriages was a tad odd. Motivation ALWAYS preferred to run to the ball.

Still, they shared so much in common, and both wanted to be coveted by the best stallions in the land - Cinderella by some dude in leotards wearing a fluffy pink hat (and he had a kinky thing for glass slippers didn't he?). Motivation, I would hope, was thinking only of me.

Anyway, this is where I found my little cherished catty cherub - in the Enchanted Forrest with that siren, Cinderella. Just seeing her...my head spun with desire, engorged with endorphin-rich love again, and again...

Trying to ignore the tart sitting next to her, I pleaded to my Moty:

"My darling, the hills will be alive with the sound of music, our music. Our running steps, our breathing, our spirits would be entwined forever...if only you will come with me..."

"No"

"Wot"

"No"

What did she mean, NO? Just like that, NO! How could she? My oxygen-depleted brain cells couldn't take anymore of this. And they weren't going to take any more of this. I would fight for her. Release her from that fandango she seemed to be in with Cinderella.

I would get my Moty back. It was just that I was going to have to be smart. I had a plan...

TO BE CONTINUED

Will this story have a happy ending? Will I get my Motivation back? Does Viagra get to play a part? Who will play me in the television mini-series of this grand adventure?

Stay tuned for the final exciting installment of "Motivation - a love story" - which will be released at 7 pm Australian Eastern Standard Time on Monday 23 July.

Agents please note the exclusive rights to this story are currently under negotiation with the inhabitants of Planet Venus. It will then be available in all good book stores throughout the universe.