~Just Run

~Originally posted 20 August 2017~

Dear Disappointed Runner,

Get over it. By this point your friends, family, and loved ones have already clichéd your ears deaf I’m sure. So you came here to get some “real talk”. And I’m going to give it to you. No, this is not going to be what you want to hear, and I don’t care. You need to hear it. Yes, there is always “next time”, but who cares? You had a goal, and you didn’t make it. Get over it. Get over it, and get over yourself. You’re sulking in your missed PR as if that is going to accomplish something. Take a walk with me…

Where are we? Oh, we’re just hanging out here, spectators in the crowd of your next race. And there you are, can you see yourself? Wow, you don’t look ready for this at all. Maybe if you had spent less time sulking and more time training you’d have a look of confidence on your face instead of that obviously insecure smile you’re currently sporting. Oh, there’s the gun. And there you go, reluctantly crossing the start line… Get. Over. It. Now! It’s done, It’s over, it’s in the past. You owe it to your past self to not show up to this next race in that condition. You owe it to your past self to try again. You really want to cry? Do it, get it out. Do whatever it is that you have to do as fast as you have to do it in order to give yourself the confidence you need to lace up those running shoes and put some miles on those puppies.

That race was a lesson, not a failure, hopefully you see that now but if not you definitely will when you take an honest look back at this after finally accomplish that goal of yours. Write this lesson down and put it in an envelope labeled “do not open before PR”. Now (as my mother would always say) get off of your do nothing and do something! Like, not “now” but “right now”. Stop reading this letter and go!

Now it’s my turn to lay some clichés on ya. There IS in fact always a “next time”. It did not kill you. Trying IS an accomplishment in itself. You CAN do it. Where there’s a will there’s a way. Believe in yourself… I told you to stop reading, you didn’t want to listen.

Until next time, Run Forrest

P.S. This is a post-race picture of the Three Musketeers Plus One. And just for the record (since my height almost always comes in to question when people see picture of Twigman and I together) I am 6’1.