The journey of a 100 miles begins with one step. The journey of one step begins with letting go of 100 fears. Over the next few posts I will unravel some of the many things that I contemplated and learned for myself and that which I can share.
Firstly let me begin by informing you of an important fact. I am not some super athlete nor having been doing ultra ultramarathons for long periods of time. I am not seasoned as they say. I am the guy who could barely run 0.1 mile around the block and feel I was going to die. And here I was stepping out the door on a Friday night at 715pm right after coming back from a busy day at work with grand plans of running a 100 miles. This was a 1000 x greater distance than where I had once started not even 8 years ago. It was a dream. I knew plenty of seasoned athletic friends who did these ultramarathons, but that was not me, or at least I convinced myself of that for most of my life. I always have focused on what I was not, thinking that was a good way to live, stay in my lane, and conditioned by society to believe this.
Sometimes it takes a goal so big that the brain cannot even comprehend it, in order to shake off apathy and old mindsets, to achieve that which lie in the realms of the gods. Yet what if each of us is that same God spark that can accomplish great things. We are. You are. I am.
Clicked on my garmin watch to record the run, but mainly to keep track of my mileage. Tied my laces of my shoes and took a deep breath, opened the garage door and started. This was half a mile loop, to be run/walked 200 times for a 100 miles. The plan was to finish the distance, with the hope of less than 30 hours. I had originally wanted to do this on Saturday morning, but the air was so light on Friday night and the temperatures had dropped I convinced myself top start this adventure 9 hours earlier.
The first loop, the mile is always the hardest. The body knew that this was going to be hard, get ready for the suffering my mind said. But somewhere my heart knew that we would be alright, and wondered what would be the challenges up ahead. Fatigue, sleepiness, drowsiness, painful feet, blisters, hunger, darkness, air quality, thunderstorms all were just a few of the obstacles that came my way. But I did not “know “ all this prior.
When the end finish does not come in our timeline, we are taught to become PATIENT. When we cannot see the ending we are taught to TRUST. When the journey is unclear, we are taught the value of FAITH. Growth does not happen quickly, nor does it come in a box with wrapped in ribbons. It comes in the form of challenges.
I started off at a relaxed speed. I knew that I had to pace myself for the long haul. such is the nature in life where we pace ourselves not for the next one year or 10 years but for a lifetime. This was the art of endurance training, a mirror of our own lives, riddled with valleys and peaks, trials and tribulations, successes and failures, supports and challenges.
This was the first two of my lessons, patience and pacing.
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I love you
