How many times have you heard the metaphor, “Life is a marathon”? It has been said so many times that it’s become cliché. However, the reason that things become cliché is because they are basically true.

Believe it or not, last Saturday’s 50-mile run for me was one of the best, most enjoyable runs I’ve ever done. That’s not to say that it was easy or that I didn’t “run” into some rough patches. I will say, though, that there was not one time through the course of the day that I considered quitting. Even when things got a little dicey or lonely out there, I knew that if I just hung in long enough that it would get better.

We all face challenges in our lives. Do we just give up? No. We keep plugging away, and what happens? Things eventually get better. When I first considered running ultramarathons, I talked to a lot of other runners, and I continue to read a lot of books on the subject. And, in my many conversations I’ve had and books I have read, one thing every ultrarunner says is that there will be bad patches along the way…and that if I could just KNOW that things WILL get better that they would pass.

Just about anyone can run a marathon or an ultramarathon. Sure it takes a certain amount of training and fitness and desire. But, it is more mental training and fitness than anything else.

The same is true with our everyday life challenges.  Our brains control everything we do. I’m reminded of a few lines from a poem I had to memorize in 10th grade (back in the old days when teachers still had students memorize poems). It is from Rudyard Kipling’s famous poem “If”:

“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you..If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you…If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two imposters just the same…Yours in the Earth and everything that’s in it.”