4/29: Level 7 – Grit

Grit is the stubborn refusal to quit. Grit is powering through 6 intervals in the weirdest spring heat wave and a down pour. Today’s run (7min run, 1min walk x6) was filled with grit on many levels.

I slept over 10hrs and had a complete rest day yesterday to hit the ground running this afternoon, completely refreshed. I spent the morning hydrating as much as possible and topping off my fuel reserves before cranking out my warmup for today’s “run.”

As I started off on my run, the first segment is always filled with a few hills to get the heart rate up quickly. The path can be relentless sometimes and the only way to get better is to get up and over the hills. “Grin and bear the Grit,” I kept telling myself. In the middle of my third interval, the sky opened right up with a soaker. “Grin and bear the Grit,” I told myself again. As the run continued, I looked more forward to the walk intervals on this hot and wet day. The extra gutsy breeze was welcomed. During my last interval, I was eager for my beverages waiting for me on ice in the car – I couldn’t get to them quick enough. My two Maurten gels had been consumed and I was ready to rehydrate.

Today was about grit – a bridge between perseverance and passion. Grit to me is what’s needed the last 10k of a marathon and that’s where I tried to visualize myself: after mile 20, sweaty, thirsty, and just ready to keep kicking to the finish. Grit is the determination to fight through obstacles until you succeed; a relentless stubborn spirit to find success. If there’s one thing I do well, I am pretty stubborn overall and I know how to get gritty when it matters. I’m ready for a summer of grit. The summer sweat fest will be worth the process of crossing my seventh marathon finish line later this year.

5/1 – Level 8: Strength

Strength is needed almost daily, whether physical, emotional, or psychological. You have to work on all of them, improving them a little at a time. If you rush the development of strength, you rush to failure. Strength is being able to withstand trials that test us and push us closer to success. The word “strength” has 8 letters and it made for a good focus point of my run today. These words came to mind, as I thought about what each letter meant to me.

Simplicity: Simple and effective is the name of the game nowadays. Do fewer things better and watch your strength grow. For me, I needed less stress and metrics around the sport of running to be strong again.

Toughness: You either have it or you don’t. It’s about withstanding hardship to cope in difficult situations. During running, there will always be moments of needing to push the comfort zone with strength.

Retry: When the plan doesn’t work, change the plan but never the goal. I’ve faced a few attempts at retrying and retrying again. From setbacks to comebacks, it is a chance to retry better and stronger than before.

Enough: This is about learning to scale things back to what is enough to keep moving forward in a productive manner without overreaching capacity. It’s a hard concept to embrace but I’ve made some progress. As someone who loves to push the extremes, I have learned that good enough is just that: enough. It could actually get you farther ahead with more strength.

No: A few months ago, someone asked me to consider “How often have you exercised Vitamin N?” I asked what that meant and it meant “How often have you said no to others or to one item on your to-do list?” Ever since then, it’s a weekly question that really helps me to eliminate clutter from life and to stay strong in my own commitments.

Green light: I recently implemented this thought process before workouts to assess my energy expenditure. If the stop light is green, I can proceed. This allows me to have appropriate physical strength to complete the activity, with minimal chance of injury.

Today: The strength of today will get you to the success of tomorrow. Don’t force the success by focusing on the future. Stay in the moments of today and focus on what you can do better now.

Healing: At the heart of strength are the tender moments of healing – physically, emotionally, psychologically. None of these are a linear process. Some take more time than others. Healing takes strength in more ways than one, but once healed, success will happen.

Today’s Level 8 (8min run, 1min walk x6) was on-point in so many ways: fueling, hydration, mindset, weather, planned route, and a bonus sunset. It was after a 12hr work day, but I played my cards exactly how they were needed. I held back quite a bit during the run intervals because it was warm again, but actually holding back allowed it to be enjoyable. I didn’t glance at any metrics until I was done and I was pleasantly surprised. I was locked into the zone, moving flawlessly finally. I was in rhythm and on point, except a little fatigued closing out the last interval on the uphills. Today, I felt like my physical and mental strength were in harmony, after so much work on each of them. It was a good deposit into the bank of confidence on the journey to success.

5/3 – Level 9: Courage

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying ‘I will try again tomorrow.’” Courage is a badge of honor and it ranks high up there next to integrity. Courage is looking your biggest fears in the face and demolishing them like a hungry lion in the wild.

On today’s run (9min run, 1min walk x 6), I kept thinking about the word courage and how it applies to me. It’s such a powerful word. Just thinking “I am courageous when…” makes me feel strong and optimistic. Today, I really felt the courage of the past 11 months – so much heartbreak but so many more times of courage to try again, to lace up again, to saddle up, to advocate, to rebuild, to fuel, to hang in there, to feel my emotions, to learn, and finally to be right in my element again. Courage requires a type of fearlessness, to not be afraid of failure but to see it as an opportunity to emerge even better. Courage is having a chip on your shoulder, to know you can improve and do better and the quest to prove it to no one but yourself. Courage is being willing to fail in order to enter a new realm of unlimited potential. That’s exactly where I feel I have landed. It finally feels like all of the setbacks occurred for a very specific reason: to launch me into a fresh environment filled with positive possibilities. While there were many days filled with questions, I finally feel that I am exactly where I need to be: ready to dive into a courageous summer, open-minded and excited for opportunities. As I approach the one year mark from my hip injury, my courage to keep showing up over the last 11 months finally feels worth it.

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” – Nelson Mandela

5/5 – Level 10: Success

Well, the day has finally come for Level 10: steady state running. I had such mixed thoughts to start the day: “Would I miss the walking breaks?” and “Am I really ready for this already?” I think my biggest fear is rushing to failure during this month of May, because I simply and literally have fallen apart during June in 2021, 2022, and 2023. Yet, I knew I could handle it. Nonetheless, I put off my run to least humid part of the day, with the warmest temp, and the best chance for sun on this cloudy day. I did everything I could to delay the inevitable: walked, laundry, dishes, napped, ate, and shred junk mail. Once 5:00pm came around, I knew I had to get moving to the park to show up, lace up, and not give up.

“Success” was the theme for today’s Level 10 run (45min run w/o walk intervals). Some time ago, I came across the best quote: “Success happens when preparation meets opportunity.” I have been preparing my skeleton for the opportunity to run free again. All of those cocoon days when I was sick, all of those biking miles for aerobic base building, all of those days in a postop offloading shoe, and all the rehab time in the gym prepared me for the opportunity of today. To have so much hard work come together flawlessly felt like the cherry on top of a dessert. I absolutely proved to myself that I am ready for the long haul of marathon season. Today, I was successful.

Success is not about the outcome, but rather about the process. As someone who used to get hung up on result-oriented goals, I had to reshape my thought process on what defines success. Success is the process of stringing together small effective steps toward an outcome. I broke this down in my head into little pieces that I knew I needed to work on: sleep, fuel, life demands, strength training, steps per day, dedicated time to mental skills, quiet time, adequate rest days, cardio load per week, and finally activities that bring fun outside of training. Some of these are more challenging than others, but I kept working at all of them.

When I outlined my goals a few weeks ago, I knew I needed to successfully complete a Return-to-Run program by early May in order to advance into marathon season—something that I have waited so long for! I didn’t focus on the timeline, but I focused daily on what I needed to do to prepare my skeleton for the opportunity to start the next chapter.

At the end of the day, I was absolutely successful in completing my Level 10 run, pain-free, and ready to ramp up carefully to the finish line in September. I knew I would be successful all along – I visualized this day weeks ago. Success is what you define it—on your terms. How will you reach your success of tomorrow?

“Patience, persistence, and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.”