Trial Runs – 65 Days Left

I think my goal in sharing the success and failure of my journey is somehow I intrinsically understand that success breeds success. In two ways. Internally and externally. Internally because as I have success accomplishing something significant in one area of my life, that success will influence my attitude and emotions in other aspects of my life. As I improve as a runner, I will improve as a person. Externally because other people will begin to have success as well. Not necessarily because of me, but perhaps by some sort of association people lift each other as they have success.

So this morning I tried to break my personal best half marathon time. I failed. Came up up short by about 5 minutes. The reason (runners always have reasons) is because of that idiot cyclist that yelled at me for running on the road and some cramping that I got on mile 9. I just knew eating that pizza last night was a bad idea. However I pushed through and finished on my marathon pace time but did not beat my personal best. For the first 8 miles, however, I poured it on and felt like I was helping other people by striving to have success. If I could break through and achieve my personal best then that somehow would help other people in their lives. I pushed myself hard thinking I would sit down and write this blog in triumph.

Instead, I am writing that I did my best, had a respectable finish and was able to gut it out (literally). This experience taught me something valuable. Today was a test run of sorts. I was testing my training regime of the last 3 months to determine just how much progress that I have made. I tried to simulate a real event as much as possible. I wore the same clothes, carried the same items, ate the same foods (minus the pizza) as a real race day. I had a few challenges that were caused my my lack of preparation. Mainly food intake the night before was off – therefore my race performance was off.

Leads me to the idea, how often do we have test runs on really important things we are focused on? A test run, meaning a day of serious intent where you prepare and deliver as if the exercise was real to determine if all systems really are a go or not. NASA does this, why not us? My test run today proved that all systems were not ready to go. I had the equivalent of an O ring blow out today and I need to make sure I readjust my pre-race preparation to dial that in and be ready for the real thing. Could we apply this to other areas of our lives?

I am thinking the answer to that is yes, but wow what a change in mentality that would require. Easier to do with a thing like running, but imaging if it was a sales proposal, job interview, uncomfortable chat with a teenager (or a husband, wonder which is worse?). Would you be willing to implement what it took to have a serious trial run of an event such as that. Seems to be that you should, and it would help you incredibly. The absolute worst time to think about improving your job interview skills is when you do not have a job! Better to have a solid, well thought out chat with your kid now before you have to talk about why they did something stupid. Are you going to practice a killer sales presentation for the first time in front of your most important client on a really important deal? Maybe you should have some test runs and deal with how uncomfortable that is. What is worse, the uncomfort of being ill prepared and unorganized on the actual real day, or the uncomfort of doing the work to have a few trial runs?

This is one of those things that we know we should do, but do not. We should eat better, but we don’t. We should exercise, but we don’t. We should spend time with our loved one, but we don’t. We should always be developing our careers, but we don’t. Whatever you want to improve upon, you should start by building incremental habits – but perhaps set some dates in the future when you have to execute a trial run. You will probably fail, like I did. But I am glad I had severe stomach cramping on mile 9 today and not in 65 days from now.

Guy Reams
365 Alumni
65 Days Left to 1st Marathon

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