5 Lessons Learned From My First Ultra Marathon

November 2, 2012 By Joel Runyon 14 Comments

This weekend I ran the Chicago Ultra Marathon.

I never thought I’d actually run an ultra marathon. I told myself after my first ever marathon that that was more than far enough and I was quite okay.

Then I found out about ultras and they kept popping up in my mind. At the same time, I found an amazing organization to partner with, and pretty soon I was working in a coffee shop sitting next to Nicky when I looked up at him and said, “I think I just signed up for an ultra marathon.” What am I doing?

A few months later, after a few months of trainig, I was staring at the starting line this past Saturday, listening to the race director shout out “5 minutes till start!” I lined up, took my sweats off and over the next 6 hours, ran the thing. Here’s what I learned.

Here’s 5 Lessons I Learned From My First Ultra Marathon

Reference Points Matter

The course was a about 31 miles. It was a 10.5 mile loop we ran 3 times. That meant it was a ~5 miles out, and ~5 miles back.

A lot of marathon courses don’t have loops. They’re like big running tours where you can see different parts of the city. That’s great for big cities where you have crowds out cheering, but on longer courses with smaller fields, the number of people tends to get spread out, it’s much quieter and can be more difficult to always know where you’re at on the course.

That’s why reference points matter. They help give you familiar segments throughout the race.

The race was 30 mles, but it was only a 5 mile run, 6 times.

That sounds way more manageable. And while it was still freaking hard, every 5 miles, I had a reference point that I had definitely seen before and after one loop, I was running in familiar territory and began to know what to expect. I knew where hills were, when the head winds would pick and where the break stations were. That might not sound like that big of a deal, but in the middle of the race, it makes a big, big difference when you know that you’ve been here before, you’ve done it before and you can damn sure do it again.

It Hurts Until it Feels Good

As we started running, the pack was pretty close for the first 5-7 miles. You don’t want to take it too fast out of the gate since you’ve got quite a few miles ahead of you. I started talking to a guy named Tom who had run a couple of ultras before and he said something I took me the rest of the race:

It hurts, it hurts and hurts until it feels good.

I didn’t really “get it” at the time, but 10-12 miles later I knew exactly what he was talking about.

It’s All About The Decision

Up until the run actually began, the idea of an ultra marathon was all cerebral. I knew I was running an ultra marathon, but it didn’t really set.

At mile 17 or 18, it hit me. I realized that no matter what, I was going to finish.

It was decided. No motivation needed.

It might take me all day, but it was going to happen.

It’s Not About You

It was a good thing I decided that at mile 18, because miles 22-30 sucked. Like really sucked. I tweaked my ankle and spent an hour fighting a brutal headwind that was on special delivery from Lake Michigan just for me, but there wasn’t a chance I was going to quit.

Because I had perspective.

The race wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about how fast I could go or if I could beat the 200 other nut jobs spending 5+ hours on a Saturday pushing themselves to the limit.

It was about giving a small group of kids access to do something that’s literally not possible for most of their peers.

When you get perspective you realize that your problems aren’t that big after all. Sure, an ultra is tough, but it’s also the opportunity to push myself to do things I never thought I could do. Most people don’t have that same opportunity and there’s a lot of kids out there who just want the chance to read.

Realizing that most of your problems aren’t really that tough. And, when they are tough, don’t quit because they’re hard: keep going because it is hard.

Impossible is Negotiable

Ask anyone I knew 3 years ago if I would ever “run” and they would have laughed your face off. I hated running. I still do.

3 years ago, I laughed at my friend when they asked me to sign up for a 5k. I signed up because there was candy at the end. I remember hearing there was also a 15k race happening at the same time and I can distinctly remember thinking to myself:

15k? Why would you ever run a 15k? That seems WAY too far! There’s no need to run that far.

I’m running that same race this weekend as a cool down run.

When I announced our inital fundraiser goal to build an entire school, $25,000 seemed MASSIVE and unachievable. Now that we’ve raised over $17,000+ already with less than $8,000 to go. It doesn’t seem so impossible anymore.

Impossible is negotiable. Negotiate.

—-

I’ve got videos of the event that I’ll editing and posting soon on my youtube channel. You can subscribe here.

You can still donate to the #impossible campaign. We’ve got just under $8,000 left to go. Almost there!

Filed Under: Endurance Racing, Fitness, Good Stories, Impossible Things, Kicking A**, Physical Challenges, Races Tagged With: 31 milesc, chicago 50/50, chicago ultra marathon, ultra, ultra-marathon

The Cute Butt Strategy: How To Run Your Fastest Race Ever

May 15, 2012 By Joel Runyon 15 Comments

Ever get stuck at a certain pace while racing?

You see great progress over a few races and then you even out. You begin to start running the same times over and over and over again. You’re stuck. You hit a lull in your progress.

Some of it is physical – sure, you can only get so fast so quick, but some of it is mental as well.

If you’ve ever run with a running group, you’ll often see the same groups of people run with each other – even when on person consistently improves, they run in similar relative positions because that’s what they’ve become accustomed to. So even while they’ll improving, it would appear that they’re plateauing. Not because they’re not faster, but because they’ve hit a mental plateau of how fast they think they should be going.

There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level.” – Bruce Lee, Then Die

It can be tempting to stay at your level, at that plateau, but you have to go beyond it, to improve, to get better and to do the impossible.

It’s easy to say behind the computer, but the tough part is doing it in the midst of the race. When you’re racing, you need a way to push beyond your plateaus, you need a strategy.

Fortunately, there’s a way to break through. If you want to keep passing people, push yourself and run your fastest race ever – there’s a solution – the cute butt strategy.

How To Use The Cute Butt Strategy

Before you get all caught up in the name, the cute butt strategy is pretty straightforward and it’s almost exactly what it sounds like.

Find a cute butt of a fellow athlete that’s ahead of you.
Give yourself 100 yards to catch up to them.
Catch up to them before the 100 yards is up.
Maintain that pace while catching your breath.
Find another cute butt ahead of you and repeat.

Although it’s fairly simple, there are a few caveats you should keep in mind:

Don’t let anyone you’ve passed pass you. That sort of defeats the point.
Don’t stare or drool or make comments. It’s plain rude and will mostly distract you from the goal – catching them.
Know your pacing. You want to go beyond your limits, but you don’t want to wind yourself within the first 1/10th of the race and have to walk the rest of it. Go out at your regular pace and implement the strategy once you hit the halfway mark. Start earlier in future races if you need to ramp it up a notch.

Even if you’re not a terribly competitive person, you can use this strategy to create a game with yourself, push yourself and even run a faster time than you thought possible.

Why The Cute Butt Strategy Works

It’s easy to have heart the last 100 yards, it’s hard to have heart throughout the whole race – Matt Soules, 3x Ironman – Impossible TRI

You can use this with trees, telephone polls or people with less-than-cute butts. Whether you’re running a 5k, a marathon, or a triathlon, the point is the same. It’s easy to sprint like a madman the last 100 yards of anything. It’s hard to do push yourself the entire race. The cute butt strategy gives you those “last 100 yards” moments several times throughout the race so you’re actually racing the entire time.

Unless you’re an elite athlete, the only competition in most races is yourself, but it’s hard to have perspective in a lot of races unless you have a hologram of your pace time next to you like a mario kart character or the girl in this video.

The cute butt strategy gives you external motivation to pick up your pace. It gives you outward motivations to do better than you’ve done and push beyond your plateaus. You compete against others to help you compete agains yourself better.

Give the cute butt strategy a try. It might just help you run your fastest race ever.

*This is a variation of the tree counting method.. David also calls this “catch and release.”

**I may or may not have used this in actual race conditions. Results may vary based on the butt cuteness index of your respective race. Let me know your results.

–

Reader Ryan Gautsch ran the Cincinati marathon in his Impossible shirt. In addition to running 26.2 miles, he also beat 12 kenyans, and decided to start a rivalry with the ridiculously photogenic meme guy. BOOM.

Got an Impossible Shirt? Do something impossible and take a photo and we’ll feature it in our impossible gallery.

photo credit: jacsonquerubin cc

Filed Under: Adventures, Fitness, Life, Personal Development, Races, Triathlons

70.3 or Bust: Dominating The Miami Rhoto Half-Ironman

November 4, 2011 By Joel Runyon 25 Comments

Greetings from Milwaukee. Things have been a little chaotic around here. In the last 10 days, I’ve had terribly unreliable internet connections while moving out of my old house, flying to miami, and flying back to the midwest. Somewhere in between all that, I ran a half-ironman. A HALF-IRONMAN! I’m shocked too. So, apologies for the delay on this, but I’ve been a little busy. Either way, I”ll shut up with the excuses – on to the story! (Warning: It’s a long read, but if you read the whole thing, but it includes underwater sparring and stories about someone peeing their pants. Intrigued? Read on!)

Miami Half Ironman

As I was getting ready for the race last week, the weather reports kept saying that there was a Hurricane that was coming Miami’s way. Usually, that would be intimidating, but tat this point it seems that wherever I go, natural disasters seem to follow, so I didn’t think about it too much. As the week progressed, the hurricane must have heard that I was coming to town and it diverted it’s course to be more in line with Cuba than Miami.

You’re welcome Miami. Sorry Cuba!

Unfortunately, just because the hurricane wasn’t gonna hit us, doesn’t mean that the rain decided to follow suit. We got plenty of that. It rained the entire time we were down there.

Saturday Pre-Race Expo

Saturday morning, we headed to the Half-Ironman expo. Fortunately, it was at the Bayfront Park. That doesn’t mean a lot to some of you out there, but that’s the park in the opening scene of Burn Notice (I don’t watch much TV, but Burn Notice is awesome).

We made our way through registration, picked up my packet, listened to the rules and did our best to avoid the intermittent downpouring throughout the afternoon and proceeded to buy an obscene amount of protein bars and energy gels in preparation for my ~~punishment~~ race the next day (it was a good deal!).

After reveling in my haul, we headed to my hotel, ate a light meal and lied around for a bit. I still wanted to get in a 3 mile jog just to stay warm for the next day so I decided to go downstairs and get moving.

It had been raining a lot since the expo, but as I walked outside the rain seemed to have lightened up. “Let’s give it a shot”, I thought. I started jogging. As soon as I got about 200 yards from the hotel, the weather turned it started to downpour. The sides of the streets turned into rivers and puddles began to transform into small lakes.

Within 30 seconds, I was drenched.

Screw it. I’m already out here and wet – I might as well finish the run. I finished the 3 miles and came back sopping wet walking into my hotel to a gallery of gawkers wondering why a drowned rat was coming into their hotel. Awesome.

I went back to my room, took a shower and put on half of my race day outfit for the next day (always prepared!) and decided to try and convince myself to get some sleep.

SO MUCH ENERGY!

Race Day Morning

The wake up call came at 4:00am. My phone went off at 4:15. Then again at 4:20.

I’m up.

A combination of knowing the pain I was about to experience along with realizing that it wouldn’t be light for another 3 1/2 hours still, held me to my bed.

I got up (already dressed, +1 for preparation!), packed my things and was ready to go.

Around 5am we head towards transition to find out the damage done on our bikes. Unlike every other race I’ve done, here we had to check out bikes into transition the night before. This mean that last night, the rain had not only soaked me, but had time to drench my brand new bike as well – awesome. While the rain was nothing compared to what it had been earlier, it continued to drizzle in the darkness as I looked over my bike.

[click here to watch the video]

I wasn’t really prepared for the rain the night before and tried to cover my bike’s handlebars with a Bubba Gump shrimp bag from a nearby restaurant, but it was much too small to fit and only succeeded covering the right side of the handlebars along with the speedometer. I pulled my bike off the rack to inspect the damage. Luckily, all I had to deal with was a little tire deflation. Compared to some of the guys around me who had to reset their chains, replace their tires and rework their bikes, I was in pretty good shape.

It was still dark out, but the sun was threatening to come up over the horizon. I check my watch – almost 7am. Time to get in the water.

Swimming with the Fishes

They called our wave and we jumped from the doc into the bay and I immediately got a taste of the salt water. First time in a salty body of water, this would be interesting – at least it should be easier to float. The water was warm and we worked our ways to the starting buoys. As we treaded water for about a minute and a half, waiting for the wave in front of us to get sufficiently far enough ahead, I started to get a little bit worried.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!?!

I started to answer myself, “A half-ironman, it’s 70.3 miles…”, but as soon as I started to tell myself those words, the gun went off.

THIS WAS HAPPENING.

I’ve never been a terribly good swimmer. I’m much better at it than some objects (say, rocks for instance), but it’s not my favorite part of the race. It’s really easy to get worked out and wear yourself out on it in the first part of the race and then spend a good 30 minutes on the bike recovering, so my basic rule of thumb for the swim is “Plan on spending a good 45 minutes pseudo-drowning. Once that’s over, get on the bike, work on your time there and you’ll be in the clear.”

So I stayed relaxed and swam at my own pace. I picked two or three other swimmers that were easily identifiable and decided to try and keep pace with them.

I stayed right on target for my 45 minute pace or so. Swimming in packs is always interesting. It’s hard to always know who’s where and even when you can tell, it’s not always easy to avoid everyone. There’s a lot of grabbing, kicking, pushing and occasionally the overzealous guy who decides that out of all the routes in the entire bay, the quickest one is not swimming around either side of you, but swimming on top of you. Apparently he thinks it works like the moving walkways in airports – if you swim on top of someone already swimming, you go twice as fast! Unfortunately, it doesn’t actually work like that. All you really end up getting is an underwater pushing war. It would escalate into a full-out fight, but it’s pretty difficult to throw punches underwater and even if you do, the water slows them down and instead of actually fighting, you just look like you’re doing a poor reenactment of bad slow motion stage fighting. Not to mention that it’s hard enough to swim 1.2 miles, keep moving forward, turn when needed and still remember to breathe that adding sparring to the list is just too many things to add to the list.

So after about 45 minutes of almost-drowning and underwater sparring, I was done. I jumped out of the water, jogged the 200 yards to the transition area and jumped on my bike.

Bike, Bike, Bike

The first 5 miles of the race were ugly. As we zig-zagged backstreets to get out of town, we went over several really old railroad tracks and I saw at least 5 people wipe out going over these way too fast. Once we got out of the downtown area, we literally headed out 27 miles out and came 27 miles back. The first 15 miles were relatively easy I actually got up to some speed on my bike. As we kept going, I realized that I really need to practice my cycling more.

At about mile 22 we shifted from riding NorthWest and started going straight North. As we did, we started cycling straight into the wind. The combination of this and my inexperience cycling, made it sort of a rough as my legs started to tire out really quickly. My speed slowed WAY down and I was counting down the miles to the turnaround. Once we turned around, we grabbed some water from the volunteers (grabbing food/water while riding is still a technique I’m learning to master) and headed back. After wrangling my food into submission while riding and realizing I had the wind at my back, I picked my pedaling up again and started pushing on.

At about mile 40, I started to get a little bored. I had been on the same road for a couple hours and wasn’t quite close enough to the city center to have a change of scenery. My legs were getting tired and it started getting to the point in the race where you start checking your watch, as if by doing so, you can somehow time will start speeding up.

Luckily, I had my fellow cyclists to entertain me and take my mind off the race.

Around mile 45, I came up pretty quick on a woman coasting. I’m used to getting passed by a lot of people on the bike so seeing someone that I was about to pass so quickly was a little of a start to me. As I got closer I realized she was standing up and as I started to pass her, water started gushing everywhere. I had flashbacks to the monsoon from the night before, but the rain had long since stopped. I looked around thinking an open water bottle might be the answer, but as I swerved left to go around her and get my bearings on what happened, I realized what had just gone down.

A 52 year old woman was voluntarily peeing her pants (and her bike) to save precious time on the bike. And it was a lot of pee.

Now, theoretically, I knew this happened in cycling and triathlons often (really, who wants to stop for the bathroom when you’re in the middle of a race?), but this was my first time experiencing it first hand and being the 12-year old boy that I am, I just started busting up laughing. Count it up to the things people will do to make time (and things you’ll only see during a half ironman). The best part of it all was that there was completely no shame involved whatsoever. As I was passing her, a group of 4 intense older male cyclists passed me and nobody seemed fazed at all.

Ah well, after squeezing as much entertainment out of that episode as possible, I kept pushing forward. As we got close to the bike-in area, I saw 52-year-old-peed-my-pants-with-no-shame-and-a-lot-of-pee lady and started giggling to myself again. Only in triathlon . Now onto the run!

Just A Half-Marathon

Only a half-marathon left! Ha, only. I did the quick math in my head and realized I had done 57.2 out of a total of 70.3 miles already. 13.1 miles left? Piece of cake. I jumped off my bike and almost fell over from my wobbly legs. I need to practice bricks more! I jogged back to my transition spot, racked my bike, swapped shoes and half ran/half-wobbled to the run-out portion as I tried to get my legs under me.

The run was a 2 laps of a course a little over 6 miles. The first 1.5 miles weren’t bad, but miles 1.5-4.5 and 8.5-11.5 were up and over across Biscayne Bay on 395/1A (aka the windiest bridge in America). As we started up the bridge, the wind came straight at us. It was honestly a little ridiculous just how windy it was. I started muttering underneath my breath some choice words at the wind itself and resolved to walking up the hill and letting gravity pull me down the other side once I got halfway up.

The 6 mile marker was where the 2nd lap started and the finish line ended. I thought it was a little cruel that they plan the route so you can run so close ot the finish line and have the gall to then tell you to turn around and do another 6.5 miles. Not cool. The next three miles after that were a little demoralizing. I began to slow down and wear out a bit, so I took a shot of cola, mashed a banana up in my hand, ate it and ate a half-cup of ice while dumping the rest on my head. With a little renewed energy, I turned the corner at mile 10 or so and began kicking the rest of the way home (at least that’s what I felt like I was doing – at that point, I’m sure I wasn’t moving quite nearly as fast as I thought I was).

When I got to mile 12 and realized I only had a mile left, I got this giddy smile on my face and almost started laughing to myself. I entered the chute and kept my pace up as I began to get closer and closer and finally crossed the finish line.

My goal for the race was 6:30. I finished at 6:31:27.

Off by a 87 seconds. Suck. Oh well, who cares. I finished.

That was my real goal for the race. I just wanted to prove to myself that it was possible that I could finish. The time wouldn’t have really bothered me except for the fact that I can point to exactly where those 87 seconds came from.

Forgetting How To Get Dressed

I lost a ton of time in T1 (the first transition from bike to swim). No, I didn’t have trouble finding my bike. It wasn’t that the area was crowded and the transition area wasn’t *that* big. It was my shirt. I forgot how to get dressed.

After getting out of the water and running to my spot, I threw on my cycling jersey (correctly). Maybe the salt water from the ocean had gone to my head, but for some reason I thought I put it on wrong (I hadn’t). So, I unzipped it, pulled it off, flipped it inside out and put it on. This time it was obviously on wrong, so I muttered to myself as I looked up and saw people flying in and out of transition while I stood there looking like an idiot. I flipped it again and messed with it as I got it on right. I threw on my shoes and tried to act like none of the thousands of spectators had seen me forgetting how to dress myself.

So, just so we get this straight: I can swim 1.2 miles, bike 56 miles and run a half marathon back to back to back, but I still can’t figure out how to put on my shirt? Yup, sounds about right.

Post Half-Ironman Thoughts

I still don’t really feel like I actually did a half-ironman. When people run a maathon, they talk about it like it’s a super emotional experience. When I ran my marathon, it didn’t seem like it was me doing it. The same thing happened this race.

Trying to Smile While Really Tired

All I could think about during the run (besides how much I hated the stupid win) was – “YOU’RE RUNNING A HALF-IRONMAN” – and jolting with the surprise that I was actually doing this. My brain quickly followed tha up with “YOU’RE RUNNING A HALF-IRONMAN – are you out of your f***ing mind?” That realization would cause a brief episode of panic until I realized that I didn’t feel like puking yet, and I returned to being surprised.

A full ironman doesn’t seem that far off anymore. As recently as Saturday night, I was sitting there wondering if I would be able to actually pull the 70.3 miles off. Now, with a full year in front of me to train, I don’t doubt that I can do it, and do it well. Heck, if you put me up for it, I think I could go and do it now – and while it definitely wouldn’t be pretty – it definitely wouldn’t be impossible. It’s funny how much your perspectives can shift in just a few days.

Half-Ironman: DONE.

#BOOM.

What’s next?

***
Now that I’m back in Milwaukee, I’m back in chaos mode. I moved out of my house before I headed to Miami and realized when I got back, I had forgotten to get another place! Details. Details. I’ve got leads on a few places, but if you happen to know any downtown loft owners in Milwaukee who want to give someone a place for either free (preferably) or in exchange for some good stories, let me know :p.
***
The Inaugural 30 Day Challenge in the Impossible League has finished. We’ll be picking the winners and resetting the challenge soon. If you’re not a part of the league yet, we’d love to have you.
***
What impossible things are you doing this weekend?

Want to do your own triathlon? We designed Impossible TRI is designed to get you ready for your first triathlon in 3 months. Find out more here.

[photos by Tomyra & Austin Passy]

Filed Under: Adventures, Fitness, Good Stories, Impossible Things, Life, Races Tagged With: full triathlon, half ironman, ironman, miami, miami half ironman, rhoto, Triathlon, USAT

The Ugly Step Forward

October 11, 2011 By Joel Runyon 11 Comments

In every race, there’s a few glamorous steps forward you take.

The step across the starting line, the step across the finish line and possibly the steps in front of the water stations where you smile at the volunteers as you try and convince them that you’re not actually tired yet.

Those steps are the easy ones. When you’re starting out, you’re not quite tired yet and the steps are pretty easy. When you’re finishing, you see the end goal and they get easier. The ones at the water stations, you have your ego to protect so somehow you try your best to shrug off the fatigue.

But in between they’re not always easy.

Not all steps are equal.

Some are downright ugly. Sometimes, they don’t even look like steps. Sometimes, your steps forward are really you just doing your best to drag drag your tired legs forward and trying to make it not look too much like a limp.

But if you want to finish something, you have to to that. You have to move forward.

The defining difference between the people that start things and the people that finish them is the ability to take move forward – one ugly step at a time.

You have to be willing to take the ugly step forward.

It’s not always glamorous and it’s not always pretty, but you move forward. And that’s what matters.

***

I’ll be in San Francisco this week to see Nate finish his walk across America. Will you be around? Let me know.

Also, if you ordered an Impossible Shirt in the past few days, they should be shipping today. #BOOM.

[Photo Credit]

Filed Under: Impossible Things, Meetups, Races, The Impossible, Travel Tagged With: one step forward

Think You Can You Beat Me? An Open Challenge

August 23, 2011 By Joel Runyon 19 Comments

Not Me

I had a really fun time racing with with Johnny at the Sylvania Triathlon last week. It was a lot of fun to not only do the race, but do it with someone, and then be able to hang out with them afterwards and talk for a bit. It was a really good time. There’s a seeming under-representation of bloggers in the Midwest and it was pretty fun to hang out with someone like Johnny and share an experience with.

I’ve been thinking lately that between now and my Half Ironman (am I really signed up for that?), I have quite a few weekends free. I’m going to have to be training for them anyways and weekends are always a more intense training day. So, I figured I can either go out and do the distances, get it done and fight through doing it, or I could make it into an experimental challenge and have a little fun with it.

So I decided to have a little fun with it:

The Challenge

Come race me.

Go to the sidebar. Find one of the races I’m doing. Sign up for it. Show up and come race me.

Think I’m too far away? Or, the races I’m signed up for are too far away?

I’ll race you.

Pick a race. I’ll come race you in it. I have a few weekends where I’m not doing a race. I’m willing to go somewhere and race you.

The Rules

You have to do it (Otherwise, what’s the fun?)
The race must be on a weekend (who races on a Tuesday?).
The race must be a half marathon or shorter (I’m not running a marathon for a while).
I can’t be already doing a race that weekend (I’m still learning to teleport). You can find my current race schedule at the bottom right of the sidebar –>
The race needs to be within 6 hours of my current location (Milwaukee/Chicago area).
The race costs less than $80
You let me crash on your couch, floor, spare bed, hammock, futon, front lawn etc.
There re no rules. If you have an awesome idea and are moderately persuasive, you can probably convince me to do it.

FAQ

Why are you doing this?

I think it will be fun .

I’m really fast. Do you think you can beat me?

Probably not. I’m not super fast, and this is more about having fun than racing, but we can make it whatever you want.

Why 6 hours Hours?

Any drive longer is probably a little excessive. Any shorter would make it hard for anyone to challenge me. I generally like driving and after 16 hour days driving across America, 6 hours seems like cake. That said, shorter distances are obviously given preference, but if you’ve got a great race and are really awesome, and incredibly persuasive, I might be willing to drive 6 hours or farther if needed. I have a few good podcasts I need to catch up on anyways.

I want to race you in Jamaica, but that’s more than 6 hours away. If I buy you a plane ticket, will you come?

Absolutely. When’s the flight?

What’s the catch?

I get to say no to anything I don’t want to do . But I like saying yes, so that probably won’t happen much. I just need to be careful about not getting hurt and jeopardizing my other races for the year.

Are There Any Exceptions To The Rules?

There are always exceptions. Especially if you have something particularly awesome in mind. Let me know what you’re thinking. I always make exceptions for awesome.

What if you don’t have any takers?

Then you’re all scared . This is an experiment. I have no idea if this will get tons of responses or zero response. But I’m curious, I want to try it and I’m willing to look stupid.

So…want to race? If you’re up for it, get with me on this form –> Let’s see what happens.

***
UPDATE: In the “duh” moment of the day. I originally forgot to include where I currently am. I’m in the Milwaukee/Chicago area.

***

This is just one of a lot of different things I’m going to be experimenting with this fall. I’m looking to make the blog more expansive & interactive with new information, features & tools. This is just the beginning.

[Photo Credit]

Filed Under: Adventures, BIT Updates, Impossible Things, Races Tagged With: Awesome, exceptions for awesome, Racing, racing readers, readers

Bouncing Back & Setting PRs

August 19, 2011 By Joel Runyon 18 Comments

Me & Johnny B Truant Before The Race

The Sylvania Triathlon

After my last race, I needed to bounce back in a big way. I was disappointed because I knew I could do better than I had. And I knew that I was stepping it up in a big way this week. I was doing my first Olympic distance race of the year and I was meeting Johnny B Truant for the race as well. We’ve been talking back and forth about doing a race together, and finally found a good one, so I had to make sure old man Truant didn’t beat me.

We got to the race at about 6:30am and I found Johnny right off the bat. Amazing how well you can spot people from their twitter profile. After we got our stuff in the transition area ready, we headed down to the beach for the start of the race.

SWIM (.9 miles)

We were both in the last wave of swimmers. This didn’t mean much other than we got to wait around a while and got to hear the mini-canon go off every time a wave started. No matter how much we tried to predict it, we still almost crapped our spandex every time it went off. It was LOUD. Our wave came up and we jumped in. I always get caught up in the flurry of kicking, pushing, and grabbing and try to swim faster than I really should, so I tried to focus on swimming at my pace. Otherwise, when I let others push me faster than I should go, I end up in the middle of the lake with nothing left. I’m not a great swimmer, but I can can swim 400m in about 8 minutes, so I tried to use that as my marker. I reached the first 400 at about 7:30 and was pretty happy with that as I tried to maintain that pace.

I got around to the the halfway mark at about 15 minutes – right about where I expected to be. I made the turn and started to round the corner to come back, I looked up and realized I still had a full half mile to swim. “It’s already half-way over”, I said to myself, trying to convince myself that the end of the swim meant I could rest (Ha!). I was getting fairly tired and alternated the last half between freestyle and breast stroke in an attempt to just keep moving, finish the thing, and get out of the water.

Swimming/Drowning

I finally got to the shore and ran a short little run along the beach to the first transition area as I looked down at my watch.

SWIM – 33:29

Transition #1

Helmet? Check!

As I got to the transition area, I saw Johnny up ahead – he looked like he had beat me out of the water by about 30 seconds. He was trying to actually beat me! I wasn’t going to let that happen. I ran into T1 and grabbed my stuff. After struggling with my shoes, I threw my helmet on, grabbed my Camelbak and jumped on my bike and I was off.

T#1 TIME – 2:13

BIKE (26 miles)

Transitioning

I jumped on the bike and started pedaling. I’ve had trouble with my bike lately. It’s a decent road bike for the $150 I paid for it, but it’s been showing it’s worth lately. Last race, I was stuck all in second gear ALL RACE. I wasn’t too excited to have that happen again, so I fiddled around with the tension levers to get the bike in the right gear and let it be as I hoped it wouldn’t drop down.

The one good part of being towards the middle of the pack of the last wave of swimmers is that you don’t have anywhere to move but up, because there aren’t many people behind you. I quickly caught up to a group of bikers and played leapfrog back and forth with them for a good 6-8 miles. After a little bit of that, I decided I had enough and broke away from them, looking for the next pack of bikers.

I caught a few small groups of riders, but eventually outpaced them and found myself alone. I wasn’t far ahead of people as much as I was just at a completely different pace than everyone else. About an hour or so in, around mile 18 I guessed, I took a hammer gel and kept pushing away. The camelbak added some extra weight to my back, but more than made up for it in keeping me hydrated. I don’t think I fully realized how little water I’ve been drinking on the bike parts of the race. It’s really amazing that even though my legs were tiring out and I was getting sick of being in the saddle (what cyclists call the bike seat), I felt really good.

As we pulled up on miles 25-26, things started to get crowded again. It seemed like everyone in front of me had started coasting and everyone in back of me decided to finish the bike strong so we ended up with a good sized group all coming to the transition area together.

As we came in, the volunteers were screaming at us to slow down. Apparently the transition area was slick and a rider had bit it pretty hard a few minutes earlier. I slowed down, and jumped off as I ran my bike into transition.

BIKE TIME – 1:23:42

T#2

T2 is always pretty straightforward. Unfortunately, my place in my bike rack was taken by other bikes who had been left carelessly by owners who were in a hurry (I can’t really blame them). I had two move two bikes out of the way, so I could actually rack my own, which slowed me down by about 45 seconds – a lot more than I would have liked. Shaking it off, I dropped my helmet and Camelbak, switched out my shoes and took off.

T#2 TIME – 1:44

RUN (6.2 Miles)

I looked down at my watch – almost 2 hours exactly. Holy Crap! I’ll run this thing under 3 if I can just hold a 10 minute pace for 6 miles. Cake. Let’s do this.

Every time I get off my bike and try to run, my legs feel worthless. However, I felt pretty good from the bike having stayed well hydrated and determined that I was going to simply pound out the first mile at a 10 minute pace and then see if I could pick it up from there. I don’t know what I had in me, but as I finished the first mile in 8:30. At that point, I knew I felt better than I usually did, so I started picking out people, using them as targets and passing them one by one. I knew I was going to finish under 3 hours. So I kept pushing and never really slowed down. I downed two gel packs in the 6 miles, and felt really good. As I passed the 6 mile marker and headed for that last .2, I kicked it up a notch and sprinted the last few tenths of a mile as i crossed the finish line in full stride.

Finishing Strong

Run Time – 51:50 (8:21/mile pace)

Overall Time – 2:52:56

2:52:56!

Why Under 3 Hours is a Big Deal

I ran the Chicago Triathlon last year. I “did” finish, but I almost died at the end. The day was hot (90 degrees), the race actually ran out of water, I lost/broke three (3) methods of timing and it was the farthest distance that I’d ever run up to that point.

I finished in 3:26:35 and wanted to die. I was so dehydrated and my electrolytes were so messed up that for a week after the race, that everytime I stood up or laid down quickly, the world started spinning. Makes you want to do it again, huh?

This year I finished in 3:26:35. Over 33 minutes faster than last year.

OVER 33 MINUTES FASTER

Crap. This doesn’t really speak as to how great I am now, as much as it speaks to how bad I USED to be. I’ve done a ton of races between last year and now and it’s fun to see how far I’ve come. I’m not a pro by any mean – you can tell that pretty quickly by my bike, my shoes and my time, I know. But, when you think about what can happen in a year and how far you can go, it’s pretty impressive.

Not only that, but it was actually my fastest timed 10k I’ve run…ever! Sure, I’ve only done one other timed 10k, but this time was still 2 minutes faster than that race, even after biking 26 miles and swimming almost a full mile. I’ll take it!

I’m not done by any means. I still got beat by a lot of people. A lot of people. I can still go faster. A lot faster. But, I finished this race strong and I still had a lot left. I’m glad I still have more races on the agenda. I can push myself farther. I can do something else. I can keep seeing what ELSE is possible. 30 minutes better is a good motivator. What else can I do?

Cooling Down

Some Thank Yous

Most impossible things are hard to do alone. I appreciate these guys for helping me out:

Daniel Haley found out that I was racing in Sylvania, and offered to host me AND my brother at his house all the way out in freaking Ohio. I mentioned something about the race, and he invited me AND my brother to stay in his house, sleep in his bed, eat his food, into his house, and generally get to hang out with his awesome family. Check out Daniel’s site. Thanks Daniel!

Johnny B Truant for coming out all the way from Cleveland to race me. We weren’t really ‘racing’ against each other, and we honestly didn’t see each other during the race at all, but it was fun to do it with someone else and have a good thought-provoking chat after the race. Johnny killed it in his first event too! Read Johnny’s Killer Blog. Thanks Johnny!

Seth Haley for taking the best triathlon photos I have up till now (and he wasn’t even trying to shoot photos). Seth & Daniel are working on super secret video project and we shot some footage the day before (which may or may not involve me doing some sweet parkour moves). Seth decided to bring the camera to the race to get some more footage, and ended up taking all the photos you see here from “stills” that he took from the video he shot. Needless to say I can’t wait to see what the actual video footage looks like. Check out Seth’s site here. Thanks Seth!

UPDATE: Johnny also would like me to point out that it was raining the entire time. Something I apparently forgot to mention. To be fair, between the water, rain and sweat, I was soaked basically the entire time, the water was just coming from different sources. Still, it makes Seth & Daniel’s time filming & shooting in the rain that much more impressive.

Seth, Harmony, Daniel, Me and Jason

Filed Under: Adventures, Impossible Things, Photo Essays, Races, The Impossible, Triathlons Tagged With: daniel haley, elite endeavors, johnny b truant, ohio triathlon, olympic triathlon, Race Recap, seth haley, sylvania triathlon, Triathlon PR

The Upside To Disappointment

August 9, 2011 By Joel Runyon 19 Comments

Every once in a while, I’ll have a race that doesn’t go as planned. This race this past weekend was one of those.

I woke up late for the race.

I didn’t have directions to it.

My bike got stuck in 2nd gear for half the race.

I didn’t run a decent pace at all.

At the end, I crossed the finish line, looked at the time and shook my head in disgust.

I was disappointed.

I was disappointed that my time was slower than I wanted it to be.

I was disappointed that I wasn’t in as good as shape as I should have been.

I was disappointed that my $150 bike is beginning to have outlasted its usefulness.

Then I realized.

I’d done this race faster than a lot of other races.

I went out and did this race on an impulse.

I finished this race and wasn’t half dead (unlike some races).

I would have never been disappointed with this outcome last year.

Regrouping and Reframing

Last year.

Last year, I didn’t even know it if it was possible to something like a triathlon. Now I’m disappointed that I didn’t do as well as I should have.

Being disappointed can be a good thing. Being disappointed every now and then means you’ve raised the bar. Being disappointed means it’s no longer good enough to “just” do what you’ve done before. Just finishing some of the races isn’t the goal anymore. It’s getting a PR, placing in your age group. Doing a longer distance than you’ve ever done before. It means you’ve conquered things that used to be impossible and made them sure things. Now you’re moving beyond those sure things and into something unknown again. Being disappointed means you’re growing.

Last year I was happy to get past the swim portion of a sprint triathlon and not drown. This year, I’m running a half-ironman and running sprint triathlons on a whim.

Past actions are never an excuse for future apathy. It doesn’t mean you should stop pushing your limits and going further than you’ve gone before. You should keep going further. I’m in decent shape, but I’m not really where I want to be and there isn’t really a good excuse other than I need to train more. That’s not acceptable and I’m going to do it and keep getting better. But, it is encouraging to know that even when I am disappointed in how I do, the long term trend of the path I’m on is generally going in the right direction. I just need to keep going.

So right now, it’s time for a long run.

What about you? Everyone gets disappointed at some point. What are ou working towards and what are you disappointed in? How are you getting better in spite of your disappointment?

Filed Under: Blogging, Impossible Things, Races, The Impossible, Triathlons Tagged With: disappointment, keep going, Triathlon

A Glutton For Punishment: The Need For Pain

May 20, 2011 By Joel Runyon 30 Comments

I’ve been in a lot of pain this week. A lot. Running a marathon has literally been the most painful thing I’ve had to do in my entire life. Not only was I hurting immediately after the marathon, but this whole week has been a blend of slow movements, ice baths and newly invented swear words muffled under my breath. My penguin walk upgraded to a hobble and is now a slight limp [Go healing!), but my ankle is still problematic and hurts as I walk so I’m going to go get it checked out soon.

***
Pain isn’t fun. It’s uncomfortable. So much so that people spend their whole life trying to avoid pain as much as possible. But I think pain gets a bad rap. Pain isn’ always that bad. In fact, pain is a natural reaction to let you know when something is wrong so you can change it. Without pain, you would break your arm and not realize it, because there was no pain to signal that something had changed. Pain helps you get better. When pain kicks in, you get that signal that something is wrong and something needs to be changed. It lets you know that something needs to change and gives you the chance to change it.

Pain gives you the opportunity to grow.

If you’re outside your comfort zone, chances are you’re stretching yourself and feeling a little bit of pain while doing so. This isn’t bad. This is actually how you know you’re getting better.

Running a marathon isn’t fun in the traditional sense. You spend months running outside in extreme temperatures to race for one day and you eat a diet that you don’t always want to eat all to spend 3-6 hours pushing your body harder than you ever thought you could.

But every year, more people do it. Thousands and thousands of people willingly subject themselves to that type of extreme pain voluntarily. And they do it over and over and over again…

I think we like the pain.

Or at least I do. Maybe I’m weird, but I enjoy the sting of the pain. The part of pain where you get to the edge and think you can’t go any farther. Every bone and muscle in your body doesn’t think it could move another inch. Every fiber of your body feels like it’s about to snap. Going any farther seems impossible.

And then you keep going. And going. And going…

I really love that feeling.

The challenge is fun because of the pain. As much as it sucks right now to be limping, I’m limping around everywhere knowing that I did a marathon last week.

When I pulled up to the gas station and limped to the counter with an over-sized bag of ice in each hand, everyone sort of stared at me like there was something wrong with me, I just smiled to myself knowing they had no idea what I had just been through. Same for the people at the grocery store, on main street and at work. They had no idea what was going on, but I did.

Even now, looking back at the photos from Sunday’s Marathon, I have to laugh. It’s fun to see the pain I was in and look at the really agonizing faces I was making. No, it wasn’t funny at all at the time, but sometimes it’s the worst situations that turn out to be the best stories in hindsight.

I like a little pain every now and then. Pain reminds you that you’re alive. When you’re doing fine, it’s easy to coast through life in a state of semi-unconsciousness. But instead of living, you’re really only existing. Living means pushing through the pain so you can enjoy the highs. Enjoying the hard parts of life so you can appreciate the great parts even more. When you push yourself to the limits so much so that you’ve got nothing left to give and have completely exhausted your body of all of it’s resources and finally accomplish something you’ve been striving towards for months, you get to see both extremes in a short period of time…and that is a lot of fun.

Filed Under: Life, Races, The Impossible, Writing Tagged With: Impossible, lots of pain, marathon pain, pain, running pain, the need for pain

How To Run A Marathon Barefoot (And Not Die)

May 17, 2011 By Joel Runyon 63 Comments

Running a Marathon – Not Impossible

It’s been almost 6 months since my last official race. That’s a long layover between athletic competitions for me, but that’s what happens in the Midwest. It gets cold, snowy and you don’t want to step foot outside, much less run in it.

Anyways, a few months back after being cooped up all winter, I decided I was going to run a marathon. The weather started to warm up and I’ve been training quietly for a marathon for the last three months. I’ve slowly been working my way up Hal Higdon’s marathon coaching guide. I had some setbacks every now and then, but just three weeks ago I was able to run 21 miles – the longest run I had ever done before Sunday. I spent the last two weeks tapering off and preparing myself for the big race.

Oddly enough, as I started tapering and resting up, my foot decided to start acting up. After talking to a few people, a few people mentioned it could be a stress fracture. After hearing that, I told them to shutup, stopped asking for their advice, stopped all of my running and began to religiously ice my foot. I didn’t run this hard for 3 months to have a stress fracture the week before my race.

One way or another I was going to run this thing*.

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/#!/joelrunyon/status/67987998469406720"]

*This is probably not a medically safe thing to do. Remember, I’m not a doctor, I’m just stubborn.

I usually run these races by myself, but thankfully, James, one of my buddies from high school, was reading BIT and decided to run it with me. I met up James in Chicago on Saturday night and checked into our luxurious resort, The Red Roof Inn in the wonderful city of Rockford. After scouting out the race and carbo-loading on a Subway sandwich [not sure if this was in the training regimen or not], I took an ice bath to wind down for the night and went to bed.

The Race

Sunday morning, we got up at 5am and got our gear together. The ground was wet with the rain from the night before and it was about 50 degrees outside with a pretty strong wind. After getting to the race and trying to warm up by stretching and jogging, we got into the shoot with about a thousand other people [the race was a lot smaller than I had expected]. I said goodbye to James [he's much faster than me], I found my spot near the 10 minute milers. They played the national anthem, shot the gun and I prayed to God that my foot would hold out for the whole race. That lasted a whole 4 miles.

Rockford Marathon

As I passed mile 4, I started to feel my foot throbbing. “Oh great, I have to run 22 miles with a bum foot. Awesome.” I took my mind off the pain by talking to a few runners around me and I found a pacing buddy (Annette) running a half marathon at my ten-minute clip. The next nine miles or so went pretty quick as I pretended to not hear the whispers of people behind me as they talked about my Vibrams and I answered a few direct questions about them. The rain held off for the race, but the wind wouldn’t give us a break. Throughout the course, timing clocks and road barriers were getting blown over as we ran on by, trying to not get hit by them. As we got to mile 12-13, the half-marathoners split off to head to the finish line, so and they sent us full-marathoners up the steepest hill of the entire course, all by ourselves.

One thing you realize at the 13 mile mark, is that there’s a huge camaraderie in running. Dealing with pain is a lot easier when you have 500 people around you going through the same thing. That all changes though, when you split off from them and end up running by yourself. All of a sudden, the closest person to me was at least 100 yards in front of me and 100 yards in back of me. As I headed up the hill, I just began to grumble to myself. I crossed the half-marathon at about 2:10:15, right on target with my 10 minute mile pace I was looking to hold. I still felt good, but I hit a few series of hills, this time without the comfort of a group, and my pace to started to slow. In my mind, I was killing it, but looking at my actual times, I slowed down about 45 seconds per mile. Fortunately, at this point, my whole body was beginning to hurt so much that I wasn’t paying much attention to my bum foot from earlier in the race.

At about mile 18, I realized I only had 8 miles left [yippee!] and I started to pick up the pace [again, I picked up the pace in my mind. According to my times, aka reality, my pace stayed almost exactly the same].

At mile 20, I realized I only had a 10k left and I decided right there that one way or another, I was going to finish this thing. Estimating ten minute miles at each pace, I ignored the pain by telling myself “This will all be over in less than an hour”, “This will all be over in less than 50 minutes”, and counting down each mile in ten minute increments..

Rockford Marathon

While I thought I was moving quicker than before, I continued to maintain my slower pace. As I turned the corner at the 26 mile marker and began to run across the bridge towards the finish line, I was really, really, really happy. I thought there defintiely would have been a part of the race where my legs would fall off or my foot would break or something else equally terrible would have happened. It was almost surreal to actually cross the finish line. I know it’s kind of cheesy, but you really can’t help but raise your arms above your head as you cross the finish line. After hours upon hours of running (not to mention the months of training beforehand), it’s a really unique feeling to be able to finally finish and be done. I crossed the line and saw the numbers on the clock.

Official Time: 4:33:40

I was 3 minutes off of what I wanted my time to be, but in the end, I didn’t really care. 3 minute difference over 26 miles didn’t really matter to me. I finished.

Full Race Results

The Aftermath

The aftermath has been much, much worse than I imagined. Once I crossed the finish line and stopped running, my knees began to lock up. After running 26.2 miles, my legs decided to stage a mutiny against me. In about 30 seconds, I transformed from a victorious marathoner into a someone with the mobility of an 80 year old arthritic man with a bad hip. In a futile effort to recover, I’ve spent the past few days sitting in a tub of ice and contemplating new language structures.

[blackbirdpie url="http://twitter.com/#!/joelrunyon/status/70170863974100992"]

I’ve conveniently posted the good videos here on the blog, but you can see some more of the unglamorous aftermath photos on facebook and on flickr. If you look closely, you’ll notice a silver strip on my big toe on my right foot. A week or two before the race, I ripped a hole in the bottom of the shoe and I never got around to buying a new pair of Vibrams so I duct-taped the thing and decided to run the race in it. While the duct-tape actually held up pretty well, it’s safe to say I’ll be retiring this pair of Vibrams and getting a new set for my races this summer.

Running A Marathon – It’s Not Impossible

I’m just a normal person. I’m not a runner. I was just talking to my roommate from college and he was laughing at me when I told him I was running a marathon. He told me “Joel, if someone had told me you would be running a marathon 2 years ago, I would have laughed in their face. You didn’t wan to run to practice, much less run 26 miles.” I’m not a runner. You might not be either. You might not want to run a marathon and that’s okay. But, if you do want to run a marathon, it’s not impossible. If I can do it, you can do it. Now excuse me, I’m going to go ice my legs…again.

More Race Photos On Flickr

A Big Thanks To

James & Me (Trying to smile through the pain)

For every impossible thing I do, there’s a lot of people I need to thank for helping me do it.

James – For coming out and running it with me [and obliterating my time with a 4 hour marathon]

Jason – My brother for coming out and yelling at me and helping me walk to and from the car after the race.

Todd – For doing all the 5am Saturday training runs with me, even when I didn’t want to.

You Guys – For the crazy amount of encouragement before, during and after the race. Thanks.

One more thing off the impossible list. What’s next?

Filed Under: Good Stories, Kicking A**, Life, Races, The Impossible Tagged With: Barefoot Marathon, Barefoot Running, Bucket List, How To Run A Marathon, Impossible, Not Dying, Rockford Marathon, Rockford Marathon 2011, Running A Marathon, The Impossible, The Impossible List

What To Do When You Hit A Wall

April 1, 2011 By Joel Runyon 32 Comments

I’m about 6 weeks away from running my marathon and it definitely hasn’t been all peaches and ice cream. I’ve been ramping up mileage the past few weeks and it’s been rough.

A few weeks back I was on a 15 mile run along the beach in Kailua in Hawaii. The sun was shining, the weather was beautiful and it was one of the hardest runs I’ve ever had in my life

I had run that distance before but for some reason that day I just didn’t have it. My legs were heavier; time seemed to move slower and the rougher version of asphalt started to blister my usually tough barefoot feet. I pushed and pushed but I felt myself running out of gas and right into a wall.

Walls come up a lot in life. The difference between the people that do the impossible and those that don’t, are that the people that do the impossible, don’t let the walls stop them.

Here’s what to do when you hit a wall:

Don’t Give Up

A temporary set back does not mean you have to quit. At about mile 10 in that run, I decided to walk. For the next 5 miles I alternated running, jogging & walking. The whole time I was just beyond mad at myself that I was so gassed. At this point in my training, 10 miles isn’t too difficult for me to knock out, so why was this so hard? But I didn’t give up. I went ahead and finished the distance, even if it wasn’t pretty, I wasn’t going to give up.

Take a Breath

You can’t figure out anything when you’re mad. Your adrenaline is pumping and emotion tends to take over logic, which is what you’re going to need if you’re going to figure out how to improve.

After the run, I was pretty pissed. 15 miles is not that far. But, as I was about to work myself up about it, I looked up and saw my scenery. I was on Lanikai Beach in Kailua which is absolutely stupid beautiful. As I thought about where I was, I took a few seconds to breathe, and regain my composure.

Like I Said, Stupid Beautiful

Think About What Worked

Once you’ve calmed down, you can figure out what’s worked in the past and what happened this time around. For me, running in Hawaii was a lot hotter than running in Indiana. Also, the asphalt roads were coarser asphalt than the ones in Indiana and put a number on my feet. To top it all off, I did a terrible job of hydrating myself. Put those together and it’s pretty easy to see why I might have been struggling.

Plot & Regroup

Using your newfound knowledge of what worked & what didn’t, plan out your next moves.

The next week I took it easy, rested my legs, ate well and drank a lot more water (like I should have been doing already). I used the time to re-think & re-do my hydration strategy and plan my route better. I had a new plan of attack.

Try Again

Most people don’t really fail. They just give up too soon. Always try again. One failure means nothing. Literally. There’s enough variance in almost any life experience that any one independent failure is not significant on it’s own to justify you quitting.

The very next week I had another 15 miler on the schedule. I went out and ran the thing. When I hit the 10 mile mark, instead of walking, I kicked it up a notch. Every mile after that, I kicked it up a notch and I dominated the run. Afterwards I stretched and while my legs were tired, I felt really, really good.

Repeat

You won’t always break through a wall on your first try. You might run into the same wall multiple times or you might hit different walls as you pass different obstacles, but there’s always another wall. You have to have the discipline to keep going and keep trying in spite of your desire to quit.

—

Discipline is

A few weeks back, I wrote a post about discipline and got a lot of good feedback from it. Reader Dusti Arab created a desktop background from the post and put it as her desktop background. She shared it with me via email and I thought it was so cool, I asked if I could post it here for you guys and she agreed. Simply right click on this link to download the Discipline Is desktop background. If you like it, be sure to say thanks to @DustiArab. Hopefully it will help you have the discipline to keep going when you hit a wall.

[Brick Photo Credit]

Filed Under: Kicking A**, Personal Development, Races, The Impossible Tagged With: break a hand, hit a wall, what do do when you hit a wall