The Nearest Popsicle

            It’s five a.m. and I’m sitting in the wardroom at my ROTC unit.  I’m writing a paper on Tunisia for a history class, but I’m not entirely thrilled by it.  I’m tired, hungry and freezing, wondering where spring is hiding after all this time.  I sometimes joke that being in the wardroom when everyone’s at PT (since I’m injured and can’t go), is the most productive part of my day, because hey, what is there to distract you at 5 in the morning when you’re not connected to the crosstown school’s wifi and there’s no one around?  I plead the fifth because I’m writing a blog post right now (and I just posted two last night). 

            Today I want to talk to you a little about motivation.  And I mean, I’m not trying to bombard you with a pep talk this morning.  “Come on guys!  Get super hua.  Let’s go!”  But, I want to talk a little bit about what possesses human beings to do what they do.  And not in a psychology kind of way.  Just in a “People make choices and some of them seem way out there, until you’ve picked that way out there choice before, and then it’s way easier to pick again.”

            I mean you’d think I’d cry inside about waking up at 4 a.m.  And you’re one hundred percent correct.  Even after all this time, it still requires meticulous planning, far too many alarms, and a little bit of digging deep and giving it my all just to get out of bed and into uniform in the morning on early days.  But, hey, getting out of bed at 7 a.m. on a Saturday morning to get in a 20 miler is no picnic either.  But, we do it.  Whether we do it for the cinnamon buns, because we told our friends we would, because then we can justify the long nap we’re gonna take or just blowing off our chores for a little while, or ----, we do it.  There’s something that pushes us to wake up, lace our sneakers up tight, fill up a water bottle, and just go. 

            I do it for me.  For moments where I’ve been running so long, my head is completely blank.  There’s nothing I can worry about.  There’s nothing to be afraid of.  I could have five finals the next day and not care.  I do it for me.  For the friendships I’ve formed, just striking up random conversations on the sixth (or sixteenth) mile of a marathon, because hey, when you’re running for three and a half hours, you’ve got all the time in the world to make friends.  But, literally.  I do it for me.  For the cardio benefits and the fact that I can get on the scale and be like, “It must be broken” because I weigh too little (beautiful, but rare feeling, by the way). 

            But, also, because no matter what’s going on in your life, your lot could always be worse, and if you have the time, muscular and mental capacity to run 20 miles, you could be doing a whole lot worse.  It gives you a chance to unwind, push yourself, succeed, fail, succeed again, die on the side of the bike path and walk home, kick back by the pool with your best friend and devour the cinnamon bun you just carried 5 miles. 

            Life is marked by a series of successes and failures unevenly spaced along the path that is your essence.  Each of those failures taught you something that made the impending success that much more important in the grand scheme of things.  Without failure, you are absolutely nothing.  Without that moment where you’re so thirsty, you turn back, or that realization that heat is not your thing and your new God given quest is to find the nearest popsicle, then there’s no need for motivation, no need for talent, no need to want it with the whole heart, because then you’re basically just capable of running a marathon in your sleep, all day and every day. 

            But, unless you’re at that point in your life where running across the country is not only what you want to do, but what you legitimately have time and money for, you will have runs where you feel like gold, and you will have runs where you feel like a pile of trash.  Hopefully the number of the former will outweigh the latter. 

            So learn to finish.  And next time you want to turn back, think about the logic behind sticking with it.  Think how nice your new splits will look on your stopwatch down the line, if you just give a little more this time. 
That's all I've got for now,

Sarah