Motivational Quote #16

Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.—Katherine Mansfield

This is such a big idea. You will never get what you want until you know what you've got and what you need to fix.

Its like my rush to run a marathon, for which, I want to put in a about a time of 4:30. A very modest goal. I was looking at the Twisted Ankle which is a trail marathon in some pretty rough terrain, hills, single track etc. That would be the cool race. That would be the "see how badass a runner I am" race.

I need to be honest with myself. I'm not badass. I'm losing weight which is making me stronger. I'm reading my body better. But with the time I have to train, if I want a good race time, I need to pick a race I can run easy peasy. I'm pretty sure I'm going with Scenic City.

Its a trail run, like the Twisted Ankle, which is good for my knees but its smooth and even and relatively flat. Its fast so I have half a chance of getting a decent time. It doesn't mean giving up what I want, running marathons, running crazy dangerous trail races. It means, I'll get this one under my belt and then I'll start upping the ante.

It means maybe doing the Pike's Peak Ascent but not the marathon. The Ascent will be hard enough. I need to recognize the difference between suicide and a challenge. I need to push to the impossible but have a realistic plan to get there. Its like the stunt men say, stunts are well calculated risks.

It means looking at what I have and figuring out how to get what I want in a way I can get it.