I had an in-depth discussion with Lucas Felton of Runnersconnect.net yesterday.
We talked a great deal about the importance of endurance exercise.
I had never been interviewed over Skype before so like anything we are not accustomed to, I was a bit nervous but usually the things we are most scared to do are the areas of our lives that we should jump into most.
Steven Pressfield in his outstanding book, The Art of War, talks about the Resistance.
We all have experienced Resistence in our lives and as runners it is a given to experience it every hard workout you do.
The importance of endurance exercise is much like Resistance. We know it is going to challenge us and that we will be tested but it is absolutely essential for our long-term success.
Lucas asked me many great questions but my favorite was how do you use time management and achieve results when you are woking a full-time job and have other responsibilities?
My answer was simple.
I think the real question should be how persistent and patient are you willing to be to see your goal, dream or achievement come to fruition.
Numerous people have great dreams of accomplishing their athletic and fitness goals but how many people in the world have given up too soon?
Nothing can take the place of a calm, patient and driven individual.
Long-term goals demand very short-term focus if they aren't achieve on our watch.
As distance runners the importance of endurance exercise is of absolute importance.
You can't expect to run a marathon doing 2 miles per day and not wholeheartedly putting all of your focus into the goal.
You can never taken your off the process. We put all of our focus on the event (the end goal) and fail to see the failures along the way as small successes.
My viewpoint is different on this because I remember vividly when I came across the finish line with a 2.19 time on the clock.
I also remember the 2.40 and 2.51 I ran prior to it
I remember the frustration, impatience and I also remember how short of amount of time I allowed those setbacks to remain in my mind going into that sub 2.20 effort.
There are runners around the world bagging it in too soon.
Results don't come fast enough so they decide to listen to the Resistance in their head, what they have told themselves and what others have told them.
Don't be that individual and live the rest of your life with regret or wonder had you not just gave it a few more months or years what you could have accomplished.
Depart your hardcore days of competing with the honest answer to yourself and that is you gave your full commitment to a very demanding sport.
Live with the fact that you held the process and the event in balance and were a success.
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