My friend Laurie is doing a half marathon in every state.
I often join her when she’s in a fun location and we have a great time talking and laughing (and complaining) while taking part in this healthy pursuit.
In the past, I worked out and ran regularly, so doing a 13.1 mile event wasn’t that big a deal.
(Please note the language I use. We DO the event…not RUN the event. We go slowly and add walking intervals…if we were running for time, it would be a VERY different story!)
A few weekends ago was state 47…New Mexico, and she chose the Great Balloon Chase event associated with the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.
If you regularly read these e-mails, you might recall I had surgery in April of this year…in fact, I had to cancel my trip to her 44th state half marathon (Oregon) because of it. Post-surgery I had an 8 week recovery period where I wasn’t allowed to run, bike or lift anything over 8 lbs. Then I had a 3 ½ month laziness period where I just didn’t work out much.
I also just came back from a 2-week trip to Europe. We biked 15-20 miles a day, but it was vacation biking. I had an e-bike and wasn’t afraid to use it!
I’ve also moved into my busy fall season for speaking, so I’ve been on the road, and while I usually get 10,000 steps in each day, I didn’t do much beyond that.
So to say I went into this race untrained would be an understatement. Pretty sure I was in the worst shape I’ve ever been in when toeing the starting line of an endurance race.
My voice of doubt (Sally) started when I was still in Croatia. “You could always cancel the trip!”
…and continued as I was packing. “Oooo…did you just twist your ankle? You probably shouldn’t run.”
…and she was screaming when my alarm went off on race morning. “YOU’RE GOING TO DIE TODAY!” (she’s very dramatic!)
As always, Laurie was a rock. “Get up. It’s race day!”
I laid there in bed, desperately trying to come up with an excuse. Recession? No. Locusts? That’s next week. The Plague? Centuries ago.
Then I said 2 words to myself that I said before the AZ Ironman and the Sydney Marathon.
“JUST START”
“Go to the starting line and start. If the wheels fall off, you can stop, grab an Uber back to the AirBnB and get back in bed. But you never know…it could work out ok.”
I’ve also said this to myself when I had to have a tough conversation with my partner. I plan the opening line and JUST START. (Spoiler alert: I started the conversation and he listened, I heard his side, we solved the problem and got closer!)
Or when I was scared to apply for that job I wasn’t sure I could get. JUST START! (Spoiler alert: I submitted the application and got the job.)
Or when I had to speak up in the meeting to disagree with the consensus they had reached because of new client information that they weren’t going to like. I collected the data, planned my approach and JUST STARTED. (I didn’t exactly get my way that time, but it started a very valuable conversation and sparked more research that did shift the trajectory of the project.
It’s worked many times, and it worked on the beautiful half marathon morning. We ran smart (and walked even smarter) fueled smart, laughed more than should be legal, and before we knew it, we had medals around our necks and burgers in our hands.
So when the doubt starts to squawk, but you know success could be sweet, JUST START, and see what happens. Don’t destroy the possibility by not even showing up!
Go get ‘em Tiger.
