Underestimating progress

I know this is a bit late, but it took me a bit of time to think about this. So last tuesday, our PE class went out to the pond and did the pond run relays. This was where we have 4 people in one group and one person would run at a time, holding a bean bag. Once they finished the lap, they would hand the bean bag over to the next person. I thought that my training times during the weekends, jogging around the neighbourhood and sometimes to somewhat far away places, would help me with this since I had manage to acquire stamina during these sessions, but I ultimately decided that they wont be able to help me during this fitness activity, which was a mistake in my part as the pond run went on When I figured out that we were going to do this, I thought, 'Oh ****, its that again.' I had figured something like this was going to come up sometime, where we would have to run our hardest, but also keeping the pace so that we don't walk. The first problem I had to overcome was the fact that we would be doing running, then stopping, then running again, cause I had learned that it is harder for me to keep running once I have stopped cause I lose that momentum while running. So the group I was in was Marco, Jared, Josh, and myself. I had realized that all 4 of us have different stamina points, so I thought this was going to be interesting. Marco decided to start the relay, then Jared went, then I did, then Josh. Clearly, I had no idea what their initiative was going into the relays, but my mind was set on one goal, not walking at all. So just before I was about to run, I was thinking of ways to prevent myself from walking, from jogging with a slow pace to running all out in the first lap. I decided that jogging would prove to be more prudent in the long run as opposed to tiring myself out in the first run. This decision was mostly inspired by my somewhat adequate mental resistance to giving up and being tired. Once I went, I decided to jog my usual jogging pace when I go jogging in the neighbourhood, doing 2 laps around 5 blocks, or as I like to call it my "training course" and during this run, I learned something, when I look at the ground, I do not worry about how far I am from the end of the run, the more I think about it, the more worried I get, and my mental resistance goes down even more and I become even more prone to being tired. This was something I was going to keep with me as I progress my fitness activities outside and inside of the school grounds. Once I finished my first run, I realized another thing, I was not as tired as Marco was on his first run. For a minute, I was confused because I thought to myself, 'This is the usual jogging pace I would jog with when I do activities at school, and I know I should be more tired than this' For the duration of the fitness activity, especially in the second to last run, I slowly increased my speed, but keeping it in the area that I was comfortable with. When I finished my second to last run, Neuf screamed to me, 'YOU SHOULD BE TIRED. YOU SHOULDN'T BE TALKING.' That was when I had realized something that I had underestimated: progress. My training sessions during the weekends did help out in this fitness activity. When I did the last run, I ran almost 3x my jogging pace to a near sprint and that was when I had found my tiring point, but inside, I was still eager for more as I had asked some of my friends to race short distances on the way back to the school, in which they refused. If I had realized my progress a lot sooner, I would be as tired as them, but I'm not, because of 2 problems, underestimating my progress during training sessions and overthinking my plans with fitness. Fitness is all about learning by the use of your body, which I sometimes overlook because I usually use my mind when I learn new things, like in the other subjects I learn. Next time, I should not underestimate what my body is capable of doing and that I shouldnt rely on past results to drive me of what I can do, because it is likely its going to hold me back. I also realized, this is a really big blog post, but I actually learned quite a bit that day and I dont see why I shouldnt post it here, especially if its things I learned that involves fitness and physical activity.