Being fully committed is the first key to success.
In 2017 I had one of the most miserable running years I could ever hope to have. Endurance race after race, I would be right on the precipice of finishing races, and something unforeseen would happen. I would end up with a DNF (Did Not Finish) behind my name.
The same thing happened in the first two races I ran in 2018, and I was beginning to wonder if I was even capable of finishing anything further than a marathon.
Then I entered a unique 12-Hour race with four routes chosen by pulling a colored ball out of a jar. Each colored ball represented different mileage and level of difficulty of the trail.
Somewhere around the six-hour mark, I pulled the most difficult colored ball for the fourth time in a row. This was an 8-mile loop with two challenging ascents, and it was getting hot.
The familiar feeling of oncoming disaster due to a sour stomach that didn’t want to hold anything down began to creep in. I wondered when everything would go to crap, and I would limp down the mountain to the finish line early.
In my head, I was already picturing failure.
While deep in the suffering cave, the most amazing thing happened.
As I crawled along the trail, another gentleman about five years older than me came up behind me. I was a little startled when he began to talk to me.
He was pretty friendly and fell into my turtle crawl pace and then said the words to me that seemed to finally break through the failure surrounding me.
“You’re half in. Look, get out of that bear trap and set your mind free to see success.”
He then guided me to picture success instead. As we crawled along the trail and began the steeper pitch up the side of the mountain, he told me to stop.
Then he told me to take deep breaths in and out slowly, and he taught me to see the top of the ascent we were about to make. He then had me picture coming back down to the one aid station where we would eat something successfully and choose another ball for six more hours.
As I released the tension, I physically began to feel better. I ate some granola, drank some electrolyte water, and then with this incredible man behind me coaching, assaulted that ascent like it was a downhill section.
By the time we ran into the aid station together, we were laughing, and we both picked our next ball together. I, of course, selected the challenging route again, and he picked the easiest route.
As we departed, he told me, “now you’re fully committed. If you feel that half-in trap coming again, stop and picture breaking out of it.”
I never saw him again that day, but that one lesson not only helped me finish that twelve-hour race successfully with a 48-mile finish. I kept moving and crossed the line with the clock showing 11:59:48.
I was overjoyed and felt twenty years younger. I had learned a valuable lesson that day.
Doing anything “half in” is really being all out. Success in running and anything else in life comes when you are fully committed.