Because I Could…

"I ran a half-marathon yesterday…" 

Running frees my mind and is one small thing that still SEEMS to be within my control – one foot in front of the other, mile after mile.  For the curious souls who wonder at my reasoning, I used to be an avid runner – several miles almost every day…  Then life got busy!

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I knew as I turned off the highway onto my exit in the early afternoon yesterday that this was something that I wanted to do.  I wanted to push myself into a situation where performance was very clear -  I either achieved my goal or I failed!  There was no room for "middle ground". 

(BACKGROUND: I had not run farther than 3 miles in a single exercise period in over a year…)

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Before I put myself into this situation, I had to set some  ground rules.  I had to force myself to be successful:

• I needed to make sure that I gave myself  the chance to be successful.  Stacking the odds too much against myself wasn’t productive and could result in massive failure.  I ran with my Zune on my arm for comfort (3,000+ songs) and two bottles of water for nourishment along the way…
• I needed to force myself to perform EVEN if nature took over and I could NOT think straight.  I ran a course AWAY from my house that was ~6.65 miles in a straight line.  The only way back was along the same route.  The farther I ran away from my starting point, the farther I would run toward my ending point…and a successful conclusion to this test.

Because I put myself into the "running" to be successful, I stumbled back to my house 2 hours and 15 minutes later having run, jogged, and shuffled almost 13.3 miles. 

WHY?

The biggest reason I did this was to prove to myself that I COULD do this.  My core group of supporters (I.e. family, mentors, etc…) would have told me "off the cuff" that this would be no problem – that I "could do it…" 

BUT…

 

• I needed to know how I would respond under the heat and the human stress…
• I needed to feel like I had nothing more to give knowing that I had to give more…
• I needed to fuel my inner-warrior with the peace that comes with control of one’s destiny…
• I needed to think with a clearer sense of no horizons…

AND SO, BECAUSE I COULD, I DID!