You Can't Always Get What You Want

Running goals are very plastic, malleable things. Bold, confident goals are wonderful. When I hear them expressed I silently send any extra energy I can to the goal maker. I hope with all my heart that they will handle setbacks with contempt and pent up rage. I also hope that no one will tell them that they will have setbacks. How you handle the confusion of defeat tempers the steel that your long term resolve becomes.

A timid goal needs to be followed by a goal that flirts with disaster. Your body mind and spirit won't evolve if you don't. Other people's goals don't matter, unless you want them to. I started out running one spring and one fall marathon, a mere two races per year. Then my friend Helmut demonstrated that that was fine if I didn't want to develop a full blown addiction. So now I run four marathons a year, and that's tempered only by my self deception whereby I have convinced myself that I need sleep and money. I'm sure I can conquer that limitation with time, though. I simply need to ramp up my money making activity when I'm not running. Yes, and sleep more at work.

Runners know what I'm talking about. Those who have conquered this sickness and have stopped running have truly reached an epiphany; they have achieved the limits of pain or love, or both. Others, like myself, are still feeling the evolution of greater physical and mental control, greater speed and muscularity.

My friend Max told me, with a timid insistence unique to her, that I need to increase the length of my long runs appreciably, even though I run marathons so close together. I now run far more miles than ever, weigh less, eat more, and feel overwhelmed with excess energy.

Keep moving forward. Be unstoppable, irrepressible, unflappable. You can't imagine where it will end.