You Can Always Do More Than You Think You Can

I had been letting my body heal up a bit since my marathon and I hadn't run much in a couple of weeks. I finally started to get back into the routine by going on a 3 mile run around a park by my house. I have been doing this for years now and it is usually pretty easy for me. This day for whatever reason, I was having a real hard time keeping my pace up and at about the 2 mile mark I was seriously contemplating walking.

Then, at that very moment, I noticed a runner coming up another trail that would soon merge with the trail I was on. From the looks of it, we were going to collide if both of our paces stayed the same. I was now faced with a choice. Do I slow down and let the other runner get in front of me or do I pick up the pace little bit and get ahead of him?

Although I was pretty tired, I decided to speed up a bit (what can I say? I guess I'm just a bit competitive). By the time our trails had joined, I found myself about 10 yards in front of him. He was moving pretty fast but I was determined to keep the lead. Then I thought, "what happened to me being tired? Just a moment ago I was contemplating walking and now I'm practically sprinting… and feeling pretty good at that."

Then it hit me, “You can always do more than you think you can. Sometimes you need just a bit more motivation."

Now this whole incident has me thinking about other areas of my life where I’m tired and thinking about walking. I realize now that the trick is to find the metaphorical runner behind me and then use that for motivation.