You Can't Buy the Finish Line

I read an article the other day that stated an ugly scary stat: 35% of Albertans do not make enough money to cover their monthly debt. I recognize that a large chunk of this likely has to do with the number of jobs lost in our province. But it also comes down to desire to always have more NOW, even if it's not within our reach just yet. Sadly, credit cards allow us to do this. I'd be a fraud if I said I didn't have a single loan. But what does it teach us? It teaches us to not work for things. Act now, pay for our actions later. To expect everything to just come to us. It stretches to every part of our lives: relationships take work, succeeding at work takes work, running a personal best takes work. While the world promotes immediate satisfaction, the reality is, things that matter generally are not something you can buy now pay later. But they are the things that give life satisfaction and depth.

As with most things, I instantly related this stat to running. I could never buy a personal best and it would be pretty worthless to me. A friend once told me, "the reward IS the race. The hard work is done!" And what great advice that was. I want the reward! Like so many things in life, the reward is proving to ourselves that all of our hard work was worth it! 

I've recently been training alongside my husband for a 10k. I have never targeted a 10k race before. I've done them in training for half marathons but with little pressure other than a good hard workout. This weekend I'll be racing the BMO Okanagan 10k and I'm pretty excited about it. It's actually my least favourite distance. It's short enough to push hard (threshold). But it's long enough to really blow yourself up. It's long enough to doubt the finish line, and it's a zone that for me simply hurts right out the gate. These past two months have been a lot of speed workouts, some ending with fear of what I need to do on race day (how can I do this pace for 10k if 1k hurts?!!) and some ending with confidence. But if every workout ended knowing I was going to crush my goal, would it give me the motivation to keep going out there on my lunch hours, or after work when I'm tired and my stomach is acting up? No! Training for this race and all before it has taught me the more you work for something, the greater the desire and the greater the satisfaction when you do actually achieve it.

Our goals need to be realistic or we just set ourselves up for failure. But our goals also need to be a big enough stretch that we need to work for them. My husband told me recently that he thinks I play my races too safe. I set a target and come within seconds of it each time. It's normal to fail at times but if we are constantly achieving our goals maybe our goals aren't lofty enough? I think, as with many things in life, fear holds us back and can sometimes keep us from achieving our greatest potential. 

So, what have I done with this? Well after I told him he was wrong (of course) I thought about it and realized he was right (I'm never going to hear the end of this). I train hard, yes. I race hard, yes. But I play it safe! I go in with a goal and I pace to that goal. I don't run on heart and mind and feeling. I do what my garmin tells me to do. Slow down, you're two seconds over your goal pace. Speed up, you're two seconds behind. I've ran this past month on heart and feeling. I rarely look at my paces. And I really hope to carry this through to race day on Sunday. To be honest, I don't feel pressure about Sunday. I have NEVER been able to say that about a race before.

I don't know what I will do out there, but I can promise you this: whatever the result is I know I have worked my ass off for it. And I will celebrate that race day reward far more than anything I've bought on my credit card.