DNF – one of the most dreaded words for a runner, other than injury.
On 21st May, I embarked on a goal to do a 100K distance to race funds for Cancer in partnership with BC Cancer Foundation (Workout to Conquer Cancer).
Life is like a grindstone, it can polish you or it can pulverize you, depending on how you position yourself. Being an eternal optimist the belief if I can take it, I can make it! I had completed a 100k+ more than a year back and the training during the last few months gave me the necessary mindset fuel on this being an achievable goal.
Think about the BIG dream – BELIEVE & then what??
“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” – Jim Rohn
My narrative on 101 – Goals: For any goal, keep asking yourself why (this goal) until the question equals the answer. Often, the deep-rooted reason will be something like freedom, security, family, country, and so on. Create a plan for the attainment of this goal. Don’t just set a goal and leave it there. You have to come up with a plan. What are you willing to exchange for this goal? What value will you create? How much of yourself are you willing to give up now to help you eventually achieve this goal?
I have been a strong proponent of discipline but true discipline doesn’t just come from setting goals. It comes first from illuminating and eradicating the self-limiting behavior that holds us back in life and more importantly the reason ‘WHY’. For me, the deep-rooted reason why I must work towards achieving this goal was going deep into what this goal means to me.
Now back to the run. There are two sides to pain, one side that’s suffering and discomfort. The other side has effort if you push through pain there is glory. At the 9th hour into the run, more than the pain came in the very deep mental fatigue. The difference between having hope and believing is that hoping is just talking about doing what is right for me and believing is just going out there and doing whatever I need to do.
But here it was not I cannot do it, nor the belief, neither was I putting myself down with the negatives, I realized I need to catch myself and affirm that’s it’s also ok, to take a step back and not give up on more importantly who I am. And I pushed myself for another hour until I realized I needed to unlace & stop the challenge.
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.” – Mary Anne Radmacher.
I know as the road ahead of me unfolds newer adventures, newer challenges … I know there is going to be a blessing, there’s going to be miracles, there’s going to be opportunities and there would be tests and struggles.
After 10 hours and 68 km of pounding on the road, the verdict was DNF – Did not Finish, but I held my head high in pushing myself in my belief in working in a small way toward a cancer-free world.
A benchmark that’s on my mind … what’s a victory, if it’s not reaching the goal, it’s also a freedom to rise up, a sense of resilience. When life knocks you down, I may have to take two steps backward to go forward. I can do it. The victory, is an opportunity to do work towards a humanitarian service-based goal done with integrity.
The miracle isn’t that I finished (or did not). The miracle is that I had the courage to start
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