Running into Colour — and Finding Yourself Along the Way

On a grey European morning in early December, Frank sits in his study, winter pressing against the window. On the screen in front of him, South African sunshine filters through Janita’s voice. It’s Peeling Potatoes, Episode 28 — the kind of global conversation that could only belong to Brida: one person wrapped in a thick jumper in Europe, the other in a T-shirt under a Southern Hemisphere sky, meeting in the shared middle ground of a webcam and a story.

Today’s story is not about business, politics, or “big ideas.”
It’s about a 5-kilometre Colour Run at a church Christmas market — and how one woman who doesn’t even like running ended up training for it, suffering through it, and quietly letting it change her.

And maybe, as you read this, you feel a tiny tug: If she can do it… what excuse am I really still using?

A Clean Shoe, A Quiet Decision

The episode begins not with a stopwatch, but with a shoe.

Frank, ever the storyteller, opens with a childhood memory: the German tradition of St. Nicholas. On the evening of 5 December, children leave a clean shoe outside their bedroom door. If they’ve been good, they wake to find sweets or a small toy. If not, a piece of charcoal.

He imagines telling this to Janita’s son, somewhere in South Africa where St. Nicholas isn’t part of the culture, but Christmas trees and elves and to-do lists are very much alive. Their small talk about lost elves, late Christmas trees and childhood anticipation sets the tone: this is a conversation about rituals, about how small actions — like leaving a shoe outside a door — can carry big feelings.

Then Frank changes direction.

Today, he says, they are here to talk about another ritual:
Janita’s four weeks of training for a Colour Run at the end of November.

And underneath the jokes and the banter lies the real subject:
How do you move from “I don’t like running” to “Maybe I’ll do a 10K next year”?

Where, exactly, does that shift happen?

Tiny Steps, Big Hills

When Janita first mentions the Colour Run, it isn’t a grand life decision. There’s no cinematic music. No slow-motion montage.

It’s a poster from her mother.

Her mom sends her the poster for a local church Christmas market. Alongside the stalls and festivities, they’re hosting a Colour Run: 2.5 km or 5 km, walk or run, alone or with family, even dogs welcome. Janita looks at the poster and simply says:

“I’m going to do this.”

There is hesitation — but not where you might expect.

She isn’t afraid of the 5 kilometres. She’s afraid of where to run.

Safety is not a metaphor in her world. It’s logistics. It’s strategy. It’s: Where can I run without putting myself at risk?

So she and her husband drive to the local sports grounds. There’s a restaurant, squash courts, a bowling club, municipal workers, a security gate, guards who arrive at predictable times. One side is fenced, the other leans into a river too deep and dangerous to cross.

It’s not a running track — it’s a calculated compromise between movement and safety.

“On that first day I didn’t feel unsure about running,” she says.
“I felt unsure about the place.”

Can you relate?

Maybe your “place” isn’t physical danger. Maybe it’s judgement, embarrassment, the fear of being seen as a beginner. But the effect is the same: we stand there in our metaphorical running shoes asking ourselves:

“Am I really allowed to be here?”
“Is this space meant for people like me?”

And yet, Janita gets out of the car anyway.

She starts with intervals: walking, running, walking, running. A small training plan, nothing flashy. Short distances, lots of patience. She sends it to her husband: “Do you think I can do this?” He answers without hesitation: “Yes, of course.”

The magic is not in the plan.
The magic is that she sticks to it.

She resists the classic trap of Day One: running 5 kilometres in one shot and then limping for two weeks. Instead, she builds up gently. She runs on the grass — softer on knees and hips, kinder to ankles. She rests. She does squats and lunges (which she hates) because she knows they help.

Consistency, not heroics.

Tiny steps, not grand gestures.

Takeaway:
Where in your life are you trying to sprint a marathon on Day One — and then calling yourself a failure when you can’t walk the next morning?

Balloons, Bricks, and Blue Toes

The heart of the episode lives in the detail.

Janita doesn’t just say she did a Colour Run. She walks Frank — and us — through it.

It’s a community event. Families. Teenagers. A few people with dogs that end up dyed pink, yellow and blue. At the starting line, volunteers ambush you with coloured powder from ketchup-like squeeze bottles. You’re already coated before you’ve taken the first real step.

Along the route, there are eight colour stations.
Yellow. Orange. Pink. Blue.
Green. Purple.
And repeats of whatever colour they have in abundance.

They don’t respect personal space, she laughs. They come right up to your face, fill your hair, your clothes, your skin with colour. Her sunscreen forms a barrier on her cheeks, so the colour rinses off her face easily. But her toes?

“My toes were purple and blue and green,” she says, amused.
They managed to get through her shoes, through her socks, all the way to her skin.

She describes the uphill section — endless, repetitive, demoralising. She thought she’d trained enough hills. She hadn’t.

She describes the tar road — much harder than grass, brutal on her feet, knees, hips. This is where her “failure” lives, she admits: not enough hill training, not enough hard surfaces.

“I suffered,” she says simply.
“I suffered.”

The suffering doesn’t become trauma. It becomes information. Data. Something to learn from, not something to run away from.

Then there are the kids — the 14-year-olds with legs “for days,” running past, chatting to each other as though they are strolling through a park instead of grinding up a hill. They are not inspiration in that moment; they are demotivating.

“You can’t compete with a 14-year-old,” she shrugs.
“Maybe when I was 14.”

If you’ve ever tried to start something new surrounded by people already further ahead — younger, fitter, more experienced, more confident — you know this feeling in your bones.

Here, Frank gently reframes it: what if their pace is not the threat, but the proof that this level is possible, in your own time?

Still, Janita is pragmatic: she isn’t trying to become them. She’s trying to become a slightly better version of herself.

At the finish line, everyone gets a medal. It’s not a competition medal. It’s a participation medal. A token that says, “You showed up. You did the loop. Twice.”

She didn’t even know there’d be a medal.

“I was very impressed,” she admits, smiling.
“I can add it to my other medals.”

Is it “just” a novelty? Maybe. But sometimes a token is more than metal and ribbon. It’s an anchor — a small weight you can hold in your hand when the voice in your head says, “You never follow through.”

You can answer it with: Actually, I did.

Takeaway:
What “medals” — literal or metaphorical — are you quietly hiding in a drawer instead of placing where you can see them and remember what you’ve already survived?

Balloons, Bricks, and the Power of “I Am the Best”

During her training, Janita starts to notice patterns — not just in her body, but in the people around her.

There’s a man at the sports ground, slightly overweight, out of breath, but relentless. While she fumbles with shoelaces, playlists and earphones, he just keeps running laps.

When she finally greets him and asks how he is, he replies:

“I am the best.”

He is not fast.
He is not thin.
He is not sponsored.

But in that moment, he is a balloon, not a brick — a person whose presence lifts you up instead of weighing you down.

She carries his sentence with her. On race day, pushing up a hill, she repeats it to herself:

“I’m the best I’ve ever been.”

She also finds a “balloon” online: a woman in Durban who started running while overweight, lost a lot of weight and now runs 10K. She posts funny videos about “elite runners” who judge others by gear and gadgets. Janita leaves a comment on one of her posts, sharing advice about rest days. The woman replies with a direct message.

They’ve never met. Yet they are each other’s rainbow for a moment, holding each other’s motivation in a small digital exchange.

Another runner, probably in Brazil, posts a video titled “How to get better at running.” He puts on all his gear — shoes, vest, gels — and then delivers the punchline:

“You have to run.”

No hack. No shortcut. Just do the thing.

Frank laughs and connects it with the slogan on a participant’s Nike shirt at a recent meeting: Just do it. He tells the group that practicing English is exactly the same: stop waiting for perfection, just speak.

This is where the conversation becomes less about running and more about life.

How many of us are waiting for the perfect playlist, perfect weather, perfect shoes, perfect confidence before we make the first move?

How often do we collect information, courses, equipment — but never step onto our own version of the tar road?

Takeaway:
Where are you over-preparing instead of doing the uncomfortable, simple, unglamorous action that actually creates change?

Flowers, Safety, and the Art of Looking Up

Behind the kilometres and colour powder is another crucial layer: safety and space.

For Frank, living in Europe, walking or running to the next town feels ordinary — a beautiful 7-kilometre stretch that takes about an hour. For Janita, getting milk from the corner shop often means taking the car, not because she’s lazy, but because safety is not guaranteed.

She runs at the sports grounds because there are fences, guards, municipal workers, routines. She watches for overgrown areas and avoids bushy patches. When she occasionally runs up the street to the corner shop, she constantly scans for movement, people, potential danger.

Frank is still baffled by this, even after months of conversations. It’s a reminder that motivation does not exist in a vacuum. It exists inside context — social, economic, geographic.

And still, within that constraint, she finds a way to create space for herself.

Her me-time isn’t a spa day. It’s 30–40 minutes of running, watching wildflowers by the path.

When things get hard, she literally looks down.

She notices tiny blossoms in the grass — pink, white, yellow, purple. She spots an Orange River lily, blooming only at a certain time of year. She thinks about dew on petals instead of the ache in her legs.

“Sometimes you need to slow down, stop and smell the flowers,” she says — not as a Pinterest quote, but as a practical coping strategy.

The run becomes a moving meditation: breathing, scanning, noticing, surviving, enjoying.

Takeaway:
When your version of “training” feels overwhelming — in work, health, or relationships — what small, beautiful thing could you choose to notice instead of your discomfort?

From Excuses to Experiments

Physical benefits? Yes.

Janita feels lighter. The scale is stubborn, but her clothes hang looser. She feels healthier, happier, less stressed. Her energy is better, even if some days she just wants to crawl into bed.

Emotional benefits? Definitely.

Running carves out a pocket of solitude in a house where everyone works from home. It gives her a break from constant togetherness — not as rejection, but as maintenance.

“I needed something I can do that fits into my schedule but gives me time alone,” she reflects.

Mental benefits? Those might be the biggest.

She rediscovers patience. She relearns that fitness doesn’t happen overnight, that muscles need rest, not punishment. She remembers the cycling rule: train, then give your body time to recover. She teaches the same principle to a stranger online.

Frank, listening, feels his own excuses crumble a little.

He remembers being dragged up a hill in Seoul recently, feeling his energy surge from all the walking, only to have it drained by stressful situations once back home. He confesses that he’s currently doing nothing — too much chaos, too many reasons not to start.

“Is that an excuse or am I just being lame?” he asks, half joking, half serious.

Janita answers for both of them — and maybe for you:

“I used that excuse too. Then I decided to make time.”

She’s already looking ahead: park runs on Saturdays, maybe a 10K next year, perhaps — one day — a half marathon. She’s self-aware enough to call it what it is: a little bit of an addiction to new challenges.

Frank teases her, but he’s inspired. He says he’ll start with walking, once he buys proper shoes. She agrees. Start small. Walk first. Just do it.

The episode ends not with a training plan, but with an invitation.

Not a hard sell. Not a “30-day transformation.”

Just a gentle nudge:
If a woman who despised running can decide — on a random Thursday — to train for a Colour Run and finish it in four weeks…

What could you decide to do in the next four?

What’s your version of 5 kilometres — close enough to feel possible, far enough to feel worthwhile?