Building on the Success of Others

We did it.

He (Siamak, pictured above on the right, brandishing an epic finisher’s buckle) did it. He finished the Mohican Trail 100 mile race.

And I’m now a perfect 7 for 7 in getting my runner to the finish line of a hundo.

It feels good. No doubt.

I have been thinking about it often, just as I often think about his successful Western States run from a year ago. I think of the pain. I think of the suffering. I think of the pure joy. In completing a task as enormous and as impressive as running 100 miles on one’s own two feet, it is very easy to forget how much discomfort is involved. It’s also easy to forget the reason one would ever put himself in a position to endure such torment: it feels good to be done, to know you have done it, to know you CAN do it. The power associated with such an immense accomplishment is unmatched in the real world.

When you know you can run from Chicago to Milwaukee, suddenly waiting in line at the post office doesn’t seem so bad.

That’s what I want. That’s what I’m aiming for in my own training and my own quest to run 100 miles.

I have had the pleasure of pacing a persistent, successful string of runners, each following his/her own unique path to the finish. The knowledge I’ve accumulated from running with them over the last two years is as vast as it is priceless.

I know mine is a challenge more mental than physical, a quest of quiet introspection that will lead to great accomplishments far off the trail, for as long as my memory remains.

Confident focus, mindfulness and lots of long, slow runs is the recipe.

The rest is just execution.