My run today stunk. I was tired when I started, and once my body warmed up and adjusted to the run… well, I was warmed up, adjusted and still tired. Sure, by the end, I was happy I’d run. But I was most happy to just be done with the run.
Sometimes a run is just going to suck. For me, that sometimes was today. I know that I wasn’t running a marathon. I wasn’t pushing myself to the brink like the Eliud Kipchoge, Lelia Desisa, and Zersenay Tadese of Breaking2 will. The run today wasn’t even the run I wanted to do. It was just the run I could do. But believe me when I tell you that today’s effort seemed epic to me.
I could have cut the run short. I could have skipped it completely. But I didn’t. I did the run and I had to break through some barriers along the way. To me, that’s what makes a run epic. Every run is a barrier broken. That invisible starting line we cross with our first stride every day? It’s a barrier. Somedays it’s a pretty easy one to run through. Other days, that first stride is the most difficult of the entire run.
We need to remember that not all barriers are sky high. The most difficult barriers don’t have to involve racetracks in Italy and EPIC moon shot attempts at crazy times over grueling distances. Some barriers are way…down…low. Right at the start. And if you don’t look out, it’s the little barriers that trip you up.
So maybe the run I got through today – a run that started and ended crappy – doesn’t deserve to be called EPIC in all caps. But that doesn’t really matter to me. Because all caps or not, EPIC means the same thing as epic. And that’s what brings us all together as runners.
You. Me. And yes, Eliud, Lelisa and Zerseney in Italy pushing themselves to make history by Breaking2.
We are all meant to be runners.
Epic ones.
RUNonsense 