I am a Boston Marathoner

 I have put off writing about my last "event" for a couple of reasons. First of all after I finished it I've been either crazy busy or sick. But more than that I've had a very hard time "processing" all that went into completing the event and all the emotions it stirred up for me.

I should have put a spoiler alert before the title...in case you didn't guess it, the last event I completed was the (Virtual) Boston Marathon.

Back in April I found out the Boston Marathon was going to have a hybrid event this year (part virtual and part in person). They were opening up registration to ANYONE for the virtual event so I decided I wanted to register!

Let me back up just a half-step. I'm guessing everyone knows Boston Marathon is a race that you either have to qualify for with a VERY fast time at a qualifying marathon, or you have to be a fundraiser to get one of the few "charity" slots. But this year I was going to be able to get a coveted unicorn medal by completing the marathon distance on Boston Marathon weekend and submitting my time.

I conned convinced a friend to register with me and then, because she and I both love to travel we decided it would be super cool to run our virtual race ON the actual course! I reached out to a friend of ours who is one of the key coordinators for the marathon and asked if running on the course was even possible. He not only said yes, but he also offered one "non-qualifying" slot for the race. Since I had conned convinced my friend to register for the virtual I graciously let Dwayne take advantage of the actual race entry. And then we starting making our plans to go to Boston!

The following month I (shockingly) completed IMChoo 70.3. (Side note: I just realized that I never completed my in depth race recap but instead stopped with the bike portion of the race...I'll have to go back to that at some point but the reason I didn't complete that recap is similar to why I've had such a hard time completing this one...)

After registering for the Virtual Boston Marathon, I joined a FaceBook group with other virtual participants and quickly realized I was in the minority regarding one fairly big "issue". 

I was unwilling to call myself a Boston Marathoner in any way. I wasn't going to say "I'm training to run the Boston Marathon". I also wouldn't buy any Boston Marathon gear, and certainly not a "celebration jacket". While others were excited to be participating in the "Boston Marathon" I refused to see it from that perspective. I was simply participating in a virtual marathon...granted I was going to run the actual course, but it still was NOT the same thing.

Boston IS exclusive. It's not a lottery system where you just apply to get a slot and they randomly draw names. You have to QUALIFY. And, in the last several years, just running a "qualifying time" hasn't been good enough to get a slot. Let's say they are letting in 50K runners to the event. They will open registration first for runners who bested their qualifying time by say 10 minutes. Then they will open if for runners who beat their time by say 5 minutes... If all the slots are filled then they shut down registration. So in order to really guarantee a slot, you would have to run MUCH faster than just a BQ time (or raise a lot of money for charity).

I like it that way. I think it makes Boston special. It gives marathoners something to strive for, something to work to acheive. It's not just random luck. You are either working hard to run and race fast, or you are working hard to raise a lot of money for a charity. There are, however, a lot of people who don't agree with that process. There were a lot of people on that group page that expressed a thought process completely opposite (basically anyone should get to run Boston). My thoughts put me in the minority (at least in relationship to the vocal people on that page). 

Training for me was not going as well as I wanted it to go. I had been battling low iron and switching thyroid meds around the time of my 70.3. Then, we got to go out to Colorado Springs in August/September for six weeks thanks to Dwayne's job. That was WONDERFUL but it also meant I was sort of starting from scratch with training since we'd be at altitude. I told my friend I wouldn't be able to keep up with her pace and that I would likely have to walk most of the distance. 

But then something wonderful happened. My training got solid at the end of that 6 weeks! I walk/ran 9.5 miles our final weekend there and then when we got back I did something I haven't done in like 6 years...I ran a solid 3.5 miles without walking!!!!

But...let's be clear, 9.5 miles of walk/running and 3.5 miles of solid running is NOT solid marathon training. But we got home about 2 weeks befor Boston Weekend. It was pretty much all I was going to get.

Let me just say if ANYONE ever asks me if they should try to complete a marathon with 9.5 miles as their longest run I will say no. At the same time, I've completed several marathons, 3 50Ks, 3 70.3s and 2 Ironmans. I do understand endurance events. And I do understand my body. I knew I could walk the 26.2 miles if I needed to and I knew I wasn't going to risk injury. So instead of backing out I set out to get my virtual medal on Saturday morning of Boston Weekend. (My friend had to back out of going for a number of reasons so it was just me and all the other virtual runners who were running the course on Saturday (I had a friend who came from North Carolina with a friend of hers but I figured they would be running much faster than I was going to be able to go so I didn't even try to stay with them).

The Boston course is point-to-point and pretty much downhill the whole way...except for the infamous "Newton Hills" that start about mile 19ish. Those hills culminate with "Heartbreak Hill". Even the downhill sections have little rollers along the way, but it's generally an easy downhill slope most of the way.

Just being out there was AMAZING! The people of Boston and the surrounding towns are unlike any I have experienced in big cities. They are warm and welcoming and just NICE. The race was celebrating it's 125th running!!! I think because of that people have embraced the race as part of their culture. Cars went out of their way to give runners room! People honked encouragement instead of irritation (you could tell because they would wave and smile or roll their windows down to cheer!).

The plan was that Dwayne would be my rolling aid station, leap frogging me along the way with water and Maurten gels. I starting getting nervous when I didn't see him at mile 2, then 3. But then about mile 4 I saw him! And then like clockwork about every 2-3 miles he was there! I saw maybe 100 other runners out there doing the same thing I was doing. And there were a few spectators out there watching their people, cheering us all on.

But, it never entered my mind that I was running "THE Boston Marathon"...I was running the Boston course...but not the actual marathon.

I was running MUCH stronger than I had any right to run. I finished MUCH stronger than I had any right to finish with a time of 5:47. That's my fastest marathon since having brain disease, on MUCH less training. I was depleted at the end but it was one of those moments that I was in shock at what I had just accomplished. 

But I didn't think for one second "I'm a Boston Marathoner"...I thought "I just ran 26.7 miles* on the Boston Marathon course and finished a virtual marathon. (When you run the actual course you get to run on the roads. As a person "just" running the course it was a longer distance between the start and finish lines-that shows the importance of running tangents!) I did immediately go buy a "celebration jacket" to celebrate what I had just accomplished but my intention was to have "Virtual Finisher" embroidered on it just so there was no confusion that I did not in fact run the actual Boston Marathon.

The following Monday Dwayne ran the actual race and, while he didn't meet his personal goal, he did well...and ended up spending about 90 minutes in medical afterward (depleted of electrolytes and a bit under-hydrated). He was a Boston Marathoner...I was not.

Following that amazing weekend there was a little "debate" on the FB group about this very sort of thing. People were calling themselves "Boston Marathoners" and wearing their jackets proudly. I (and a few other likeminded vocal individuals) countered that thought process. I basically said earlier in this post...Boston IS special. Boson finishers ARE special. We, as virtual finishers, aren't THAT. We are different. I made a post about it on the page, explaining why I was going to "alter" my jacket, expecting to be pounced on. 

Instead, an interesting thing happened. Some people agreed with me, but the ones who didn't (mostly) explained to me why they felt like I was wrong. To them Boston welcomed us in as part of the family. Moreover, they said, Boston is a spirit more than a race. Sure, in every previous year the only runners able to run the race were either fast or fundraisers, but this year the BAA opened it's doors and let in the "commoner". Me altering my jacket to specify "VIRTUAL FINISHER" was a way for me to segregate myself away from the "real" Boston finishers. To segregate myself was me saying I'm not good enough not them saying I wasn't welcome. 

I chewed on that for a while and then refocused on other things...life got busy and then I got Covid. I had a "mild" case but I was still in the bed for about a week. And then I had what the doctors think was either a kidney stone or an infection, or both. (I'm still dealing with this actually.)

Saturday I got a box from the BAA with my virtual medal and a post card... as I started to read the card I broke down into uncontrollable sobs...

Did you see that? 

"Dear Boston Marathoner"

I am part of the family. I'm not a step child. I'm not a third cousin. I'm not an interloper. In the eyes of the BAA, I'm a Boston Marathoner. They are the ones who get to decide; it's their race after all. Or is it? Maybe they recognize that this race is bigger than any entity. Boston signifies the spirit of the marathoner: perseverance, dedication, endurance...

I am a Boston Marathoner. I will celebrate by wearing my jacket with pride!

Thanks for stopping in and sticking around!

Steps to Success

A friend of mine posted this on FaceBook today and it really got me to thinking. 

Each of these steps are crucial in the ladder to success.

That first step is a total deal-breaker. I won't is pretty much a non-starter if you decide you simply will NOT do something. Go find another set of stairs for heaven's sake!!

Step 2: If you believe you can't do something, even if you actually DO the thing you won't own it. I remember when I told my running friends I wanted to run a 5K in under 30 minutes. They laughed at me because our training runs were generally faster than that pace. But I didn't really believe them. Until I decided to believe it was in fact possible, I was stuck on that step. Believing you have the ability to succeed doesn't mean you want to put in the work or that you know how....it just means that you believe it's possible.

Step 3: Making the decision that you WANT to do something really amounts to a dream. It's not a goal until you move on to the planning and working phases. But really solidifying in your mind that you absolutely DO WANT to do this thing ...and more importantly WHY you want to do this thing is such an important step that can not be overlooked. I have realized in the last 10 years I really do NOT enjoy riding my bike up (or even down) steep hills. I put myself through training and completing a grueling first Ironman that had BRUTAL hills on the bike course but I never really WANTED to ride hills. So for my second Ironman I chose a course with rollers instead of steep climbs. When you REALLY do not want to do something, you "can" get past this step with sufficient enticement, but it will be like pulling a heavy suitcase up stairs...you'll bump along with no ease or enjoyment unless you embrace the wanting. 

Let me give an example. I THINK I'd really like to train to do another Ironman. If I'm dreaming I THINK I would like to do Lake Placid. That bike course supposedly has about 8300 feet of gain on the bike course. It's not nearly as hard as Lake Tahoe's bike course was, but it's tough. If I decide I really will train for it, and that I really can do it, then I am going to need to embrace WANTING to train and race hills on the bike. OR I have to WANT to finish IMLP so much that I will gut out the hills on the bike with no enjoyment at all of the process.

IMLP elevation

IMLT '13 elevation

"I want this end so I'll suffer through the means to get there" really isn't pleasant. Just decide to WANT the means as much as the end. That doesn't mean the thing you WANT is going to be fun, and it certainly doesn't mean it won't be hard, but those aren't prerequisites to something you want!

Moving on to Step Three. Oh step three. "How do I do it?" Honestly, this is probably one of my favorite steps. That's why I'm a coach. I generally enjoy learning things almost as much as I enjoy teaching/coaching them!

Not everyone is like this. Very strong-willed and/or very accomplished people do not often like admitting they don't know HOW to do something. When my daughter was little I wanted to teach her to tie her shoes. She pushed me away and said "I do it myself". She didn't KNOW HOW to tie her shoes, but she wasn't interested in learning. It caused her a great deal of frustration.

I've tried to give swim lessons to kids like this. It never goes very well for either of us. For some kids it's a matter of trusting me/trusting the process. For others, it's about control. There's a girl I've worked with a couple of times who will NOT allow me to touch her when she's trying to float on her back. Now, she hasn't yet learned how to float on her back and she's as tense as a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. If you know anything about floating on your back it requires you to relax in a very vulnerable position (head back, body out flat). This girl says she WANTS to learn, but she's unwilling to ask HOW or accept ANY help at all. People like that usually have a lot of "failures" along the way to get to that top step because they have to learn by making a lot of mistakes. It's like they want to reinvent the wheel by coming up with their own way to get to their goal.

Once you've decided you will do something, you believe you can, you inject sufficient desire and you LEARN how to do something, it's time to get to work trying to complete the task! Sometimes you are lucky and this step is easy. I'm going to say if you try and you immediately get to the next step you probably didn't set a challenging goal for yourself! A "FAILure" is really just a First Attempt At Learning! When a goal is difficult, there might be many attempts at learning! There's a reason the saying is "If at first you don't succeed, try, TRY again." (Instead of there being only one "try"...get it?)

That brings us to Step 6....you have learned how to do the thing you want to do, so know you know you CAN do it, right? Nope. Remember my story about the 30 minute 5K? Even showing me data that I had done this in training didn't get me to the "I can do it" step. I stayed on the "I will try" step for a while until I fully embraced "I CAN DO IT"....but just knowing you can doesn't mean you WILL. That's the next step...setting out to make the goal a reality.

Here's the cold hard truth. You might stumble up and down these steps a hundred times trying to reach the  very top ("I did it") step. You might, like most people, get stuck on a certain step (or three) along the way. You might camp out for a long while before you finally move on, or you might decide you want to move to a whole other set of stairs. 

Just wanting something is not enough to actually make it happen...

Thanks for stopping by and sticking around.

Make it a great day!

Cotton Row 10K Take 9...

Cotton Row 10k was the first race I ever "trained" for. I had run a few Race For the Cure 5ks when I decided I wanted to run the Rocket City Marathon. And I had run the Wounded Warrior 5K turned 3K  when I found out about Fleet Feet's Next Steps Program. But, Cotton Row was the first race I ever trained for. Looking back, I should have trained for the 5K instead but at the time I felt like I could already cover the distance of a 5K so I didn't see the point to "train" for that distance. I wanted a challenge.

And I got it.

Because I had not been running and then ramped up my volume and intensity too quickly, I spent most of the training time fighting off a nagging "injury". I think it's in my nature to love the idea of a challenge. But follow through and staying committed to hard work in the face of obstacles was not in my nature. Training for and completing that first Cotton Row was a huge accomplishment for me. I didn't HAVE to do this hard thing but I did it even in the face of adversity.

It's been the only race I've run EVERY SINGLE YEAR since I starting running. I don't know that I'd call it my "favorite" race. (I'm partial to McKay Hollow 25K, and even though I've only done it once, Mountain Mist 50K, but all the races I've done have been really very good.) But Cotton Row holds a special place in my heart.

I have been really struggling this year to lose the weight I've put on (thanks in large part to being on steroids oner a year), and to regain any measure of fitness. I've tried some various things, but if I'm being totally honest, my running has just continued to slide down hill. Part of that is lack of consistency in getting out there to run. But a bigger issue is that when I do try to have any kind of "plan" I end up exhausted and completely run down. So I've taken the path of VERY SLOW progression of fitness rather than "training". I assess pretty much daily where I'm at and I am not stressing over where I am at physically right now.

I've started working out at Orange Theory Fitness-which I LOVE LOVE LOVE. It's close, they have class times that fit into my crazy schedule, the workouts are different every single day, and it's one hour of HIIT. The intervals are agreeing with me but I can scale on days I need to. I never feel like I'm in competition with anyone other than myself. I can say that I've done more actual running in OTF than I have in the months before I started there, but it's still VERY LIMITED in terms of volume.

On top of all that, Dwayne and I had both hurt our hip (he was sprinting up some stairs at work and I failed to listen to my body at OTF!) and we had been sick with nasty colds for three weeks!

Because of all that my expectations were EXCEPTIONALLY low going into Cotton Row this year. I figured I'd just get out there and run/walk by feel and enjoy the day.

Since Dwayne was feeling better he decided to try to actually run the race and said he'd come back to get me when he was done. I lined up further back than I ever had before and chatted with a friend.

The race had a new director this year and she did an AMAZING job of revamping the opening ceremonies!! Instead of lining up at 7:50 and then not actually starting until like 8:20, she had the Memorial Day ceremony at 7:45 (ish?) and then we started running right at 8. The comments were brief but appropriate and they set a perfect tone for the run. When the gun went off it took a minute or so for me to reach the start mat and then I slowly started jogging. I pretty much jogged flats and downs and then walked any uphill parts. I found some people to chat with here and there along the way and then something wonderful happened!

I found a woman up ahead of me wearing a swirled red and blue tie die shirt!! Why is that wonderful??  It was incredibly hypnotic! It didn't really make me run any faster but I think if I had allowed it to it would have!

We played a little leap frog until the hill...I think that's when she got ahead of me and I never saw her again. Just before the hill Brother caught me and threw two cups of water on my back! We walk/ran together until the hill and he left me to run up it (good for him!). My goal this year was to keep walking and not stop!! I made my goal!! (Barely.) I did get a little light headed and my vision started getting a little squirrelly but I am 100% positive that was a blood sugar thing.

I had been eating a lower carb diet the last couple of weeks (trying to get this weight off) but decided to take carbs in during the race. I had taken a Gu just before Brother caught me. That probably spiked my blood sugar. I wasn't dizzy or anything I was just seeing some stars and had some spots I just couldn't see. It's happened to me before (MANY times actually) and it's totally normal from what I understand. It's sort of like this picture, but not totally.

Even though I know what it is, every time it happens I get a little scared. It's like when you are watching an intense movie, you can tell when something is about to jump out at you but you jump when it happens anyway! As I passed by a HEMSI guy I almost stopped to have him check my blood sugar but I decided to keep moving.

We got down to the bottom of the hill and I started struggling. The down hill part was mostly over and the work was ramping up. Brother was talking but I was not really in a mood to talk nor was I really in a place to be able to make conversation. I had stopped interacting with spectators and had stopped telling volunteers thank you. It was sad because those things usually help "refuel" me but I was hitting a place where all I can really do is just focus on moving forward.

I never wanted to quit and I didn't really want it to be over. But I was just strongly internally focused on what needed to be done...one foot in front of the other. Brother told me swirly shirt was up ahead of us and was surely catchable but I didn't care at that point. I told him to please go on because I knew I was slowing him down. But he refused and continued to try to distract me.

It's strange. I can't describe what happened to me. I didn't really want or need distraction. I actually enjoyed the difficulty of the work. I think if I had been completely alone I would have been able to find that place inside myself that is willing to be uncomfortable which would have allowed me to move along "faster". But it was also nice having someone on the journey. Somewhere along the way we saw Dwayne coming back. He had finished and backtracked to come find me. Brother left me to go catch swirly shirt (and a race walker he has a rivalry with).

I was trying to explain the place I was in to Dwayne but I just couldn't put it into words. I still can't. When we turned onto Clinton I was a little sad that it was about to be over. All the flag bearers with the pictures of the fallen soldiers always hits me pretty hard but it seemed there were more out there this year.

At some point a woman in YOGA PANTS passed me!! I told Dwayne I couldn't believe I was getting passed by yoga pants!! He told me I could catch her if I wanted to. I didn't believe him but it gave me something to work for so I started after her. I was able to totally put every other sound and sensation completely out of my perception as I slowly gained on her. I knew I couldn't kick too early because I truly felt like I might pass out, but I knew I had to kick if I was going to catch her so with about 50 yards to go I poured out every bit of effort I had in me...and I got within about 2 feet of her! (And I did NOT pass out!!)

My Garmin says I picked up pace from walking when she passed us (17:38 pace) down to a 6:15 pace!! I have never felt the way I did at the end of this race. I can't describe it. But I liked it. My mind kept saying "you are going to pass out" but my body didn't feel like that. My body felt mostly strong. I felt in control of my limbs more than usual. I think the difference was how strong my mind was (is). My mind was telling my body to do something and it was responding. I think that's a very good sign.

Now...that was such a tiny part of the race I'm not going to get excited. I had a lot in the tank because it was my slowest CRR ever (1:25!) and I walked A LOT. But I felt GREAT afterward and I felt great yesterday and today. Like I didn't even run! I attribute a lot of that to the lower carb diet. (I indulged after the race but only for the day.)

Just ignore all the open tabs...I have a lot going on right now! :D

Overall I am EXTREMELY pleased. I ended up with a 13:31 pace which is MUCH faster than I expected to be. I think that has A LOT to do with the fitness I'm gaining at OTF...and I've only been able to workout there because I started this year working out with Joe at Huntsville Adventure Boot Camp. It's all a progression. A very LONG progression. But I don't actually feel like I'm sliding further in a hole anymore. 

It honestly feels like I'm making actual progress. The effort it's taking still feels completely out of proportion, but at least I don't feel like I'm expending all this energy only to slide slower than I would if I weren't making the effort at all. Does that make sense?

Thanks for stopping by and sticking around!!! Time to get some work done so I can close some of these tabs!!

:D

Horizons

I love that Facebook gives me memories from the past. It's fun to see what I posted on this day years ago.  Well...most of the time it's fun.

Today was interesting.

In 2010 I posted a link to a blog entry of a "poem" I had written back in 1995. I was in therapy trying to undo a lot of the knots of my childhood and this "poem" was exactly where I was--trying to get through this raging river of memory and mess to get to what I perceived would be a better place. I so clearly remember writing that "poem". I remember the feeling triumph over the fear of confronting all those past feelings and disappointments and hurts. I felt powerful and strong. I felt fearless. I felt hopeful for things to come.

Fast forward two years. I posted a link to a blog entry about a bike race I was entered in. It was all about about how terrified I was. Why was I so scared? I was going to have to ride my bike UP A HILL (gasp!). That sounds silly, but some fears really are a little silly. I'm going to say ALL irrational fears are silly. There is no SOLID basis in reality when dealing with irrational fears. They are usually a distortion or over generalization of some real thing; that honest fear has morphed into some new (silly) thing. In the case of this race, a fear of failure had given way to a fear of riding up a hill!!

For what it's worth, I did that race and I made it up that "gargantuan" climb. I don't even think of it as a major climb anymore. Not that I could even begin to go ride it today, but I don't think I'm scared of the thought of riding it. It's hard to know for sure since it's completely out of the question for me right now. It's hard to muster fear when there's no doubt the thing isn't going to come to pass!!

Fast forward another year. I posted a link to a blog entry about staying focused on where I'm currently at, honoring the present rather than looking back or looking ahead. It was 2013. I was battling a shoulder injury and wanting to begin training for my first Ironman that fall. I had so much pain in that shoulder. (It turned out that I had a torn bicep tendon that was cut out the following January--after I had completed IMLT.) I said in part:

It's too easy to get caught up in thinking about anything other than where I'm at on this journey RIGHT NOW, mainly because it's usually not where I WANT to be!!  But...man...that's a GREAT thing.  That edge of discontentment means I'm driven.  It means I want more than to stay put. ...The thing I'm coming to realize is I don't have to give up my drive and my desire to do better in order to appreciate where I'm at right now.  In fact, honoring this moment in time is part of the way I will be able to get better.  I look at what I'm doing now.  This day.  This workout.  This moment.  If I'm giving all I have to give to make the training session what it needs to be, I can say, "YES!!  That's great..."  When I can stay focused on the task at hand I am able to give it all I have.  If I'm distracted-thinking about anything else other than what I'm doing-I'm NOT giving all I have.  It's as simple as that.

It's easy to get caught up in what I want...to be too tightly entangled with what I think I'm working toward-the GOAL. When that happens, I lose track of the task at hand. I lose focus on where I'm currently at and what the current need truly is.

I see it with the athletes I coach all the time. They work hard and get a little "injury" that's not an injury, it's just a little "thing". They don't pay attention to that thing, but instead stay too tightly transfixed on the future GOAL. They don't take the necessary steps to care for that "thing" properly. That little thing that's not an injury becomes an injury and it stops them from reaching their goal.

A lot of people do this but in different ways. I had a friend whose wife became addicted to gambling. She literally lost everything they had-all their life savings, their house, and eventually their marriage. She kept thinking she would be able to win it all back if she could just hit well "one time". The father of another friend had never taken a real vacation from work. His plan was to retire and then travel. He worked hard EVERY DAY and saved a lot of money for his future. ...he died the week after he retired. We can get so ensnared by the goal, by the plan, that we lose track of where we are right now.

Allow me to tell you a story about someone we'll call Sally. Sally had fallen into a hole. She could see the light of the "outside world" but she was pretty far down below the surface. She wasn't shaken by this, she knew what she needed to do-just climb up and get out of that hole. But every time she tried to grab the wall of that hole, it just crumbled under her hand. Sally tried everything...she called for help, she looked for anything that could be used as a tool, she even tried meditation thinking she just needed to relax her way out of the hole. She took a little time trying to become more at home in the hole, but that was NOT going to happen, she knew that hole was NOT where she belonged. But every time she tried to climb up and out to get back to the surface, she stumbled. At times she even fell a little further from the surface. Other times it would rain and with every attempt to get out she made that hole bigger and bigger as she slid on the muddy prison walls. Some days she was so exhausted all she could do was to wait for rain to wet her mouth so she could try again.

One day Sally decided that she was going to change the goal. Up until then the goal was to GET OUT OF THE HOLE and get BACK TO THE SURFACE. She decided while that was a really good long-term goal, the short term had to be something else because she wasn't seeing any progress being made. (Truth be told, she was actually getting further from her goal every day.) It also couldn't be about making "interim goals" because if she was being brutally honest with herself, she knew she might not ever make it to the surface.) She decided to make the goal all about what she was doing in the moment to move TOWARD that goal. Those actions might not produce the result of getting her closer to the surface, but that wasn't going to be the metric of success anymore. The metric was going to be "am I doing something that I think will move me closer, even if it doesn't?".

Sally had realized that she didn't have control of the hole. She knew she was not content to stay there, but she didn't know if she'd ever actually see the surface ever again. If the metric of success was about meeting that long term goal of being out, she might not ever make it. She might become very frustrated and give up on that goal. But if the metric became making attempts to move toward that goal, then ANY attempt was a win, even if it didn't actually produce measurable progress. She might move up a few feet, only to be knocked back down but she knew she would never stop trying to get out of that hole.

When we are looking ahead, we might have this vast expanse in front of us-we can see for MILES and MILES. It's an open road just begging to be traveled. But there are other times when we are trapped by circumstance. We always have a choice. Do we focus on the horizon, or do we focus on where we are in the moment? Both perspectives have advantages and are necessary for different reasons. But I believe you need the ability to do both. More that than, you need the wisdom to know which one will serve you best in the moment.

Because, we don't have the advantage of being all knowing.

Thanks for stopping in and for sticking around.