Week, full of surprises

Hello again!

May is my favourite month of the year, not because it’s my birthday on the 24th, but because the weather gets nicer and everything around us slowly wakes up. But this week, in particular, was one of my favourite weeks this year. There are two reasons why. First one is my birthday and people who made it unforgettable and the second one is my running progress. And I’ll talk about both of them in todays post. Hope you enjoy it!

As I already mentioned, I had my birthday on Wednesday, the 24th of May. Every year this day is something special for me and every year it’s better. Not because of the gifts, but because of the people that make it so special for me. The night before my birthday, a few friends from my dorm surprised me with a sign right in front of my door that said ‘Happy birthday Tinkara’. I shouldn’t have seen it until the morning, but I was still up at 11pm, so I ‘ruined’ their surprise. But I was still very happy and surprised that they did something like that for me. And the birthday day was even better. My sister called me from Ireland right after the midnight, I spent my whole day with people I love and care about and in the evening, my friends from the dorm surprised me again with a little ‘dorm party’. We hung out for a little while, drank a glass of wine and ate some ‘cake’. It was a perfect ending of the day.

Sometimes I ask myself if I deserve everything that is happening to me right now. I’m surrounded by amazing people, who make me laugh and who make me a better person. I’m literally blessed that people like this give my life meaning. I’ve never felt more accepted, loved and supported in my life and even though my life is not perfect, people make it much better. It’s little things in life that count the most for me and every hug, kiss or a wish for my birthday was worth a lot more than some expensive presents would. There was one girl in particular, who literally made my day, when I read her wishes. I won’t write everything that she said, but I’ll share with you just a little bit of her message. She wrote: “Tinkara, happy birthday! You are one of the most positive and smiling people I know. You’ve been through a lot in your life and that’s why you are an inspiration to anybody. You share a lot of positive energy with your positive posts, happy thoughts, motivational sport feats and interesting breakfasts. You are a living proof that you can do anything in life and besides that, you bring happiness and light to all of us. You make our days and color our lives. Actually, you praise the whole world and that’s something that is really worth of respect.” These are just some of her words and if she is reading this post, she will recognize herself – thank you! When somebody writes you something like this, you start to think that everything that you do, actually inspires others as well and that’s something that I wanted from the start. And I’m proud of that.

The second reason why this week was so amazing, is my running progress. I’ve had two races this week, one on Monday and one on Saturday. The first one was ‘only’ 2,5k long, but it was mostly uphill – it was a charitable student’s run on the Ljubljana castle. I am not an uphill runner and I almost never run uphill, but I wanted to challenge myself and decided to run it. It was really hard, probably the hardest run I’ve ever done in my life. Even though the rising part is only about 1k long, I almost died haha. I wasn’t able to run the whole track, but I finished 35 second earlier than I set my goal (my time was 16:25) and I was 122 out of 251 girls. I know I can do better and that’s why next year, I’ll beat that time of mine.

The second race was on Saturday and it was a 10k long race. I’m a long-distance runner and that’s why I was really looking forward to this race. It was a DM women’s run and it was also for charity. It was hot as hell and I knew it was going to be a really hard race. The first 5k weren’t difficult for me, but then the ascending part started and it was hellish. It was about 3k uphill and even though I wanted to give up every second of that part, I didn’t and just because of that, I’m extremely proud of myself. When I finished it, I didn’t have a clue, what my time and placing were, but I didn’t bother. I was proud of myself that I managed to run it, even though the conditions were difficult. But when I saw the results in the evening, I almost had a heart attack. My time was 53:49 and I was 227 among 1139 women! What?! I knew I wasn’t among the last ones, but this placing really surprised me. And it’s just another proof that I’m improving and slowly progressing towards my main goal, which is the marathon.

So, this is it. A week, full of surprises, personal wins and unforgettable moments with the most amazing people on this planet. “Life is not measured by the breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away.” Things that you least expect and that surprise you, are the best kind of things that can happen to you. Work hard and be happy about every single step that you take in the right direction, because small steps lead to big results.

Until next time,
T.