The Value And Price Of Personal Victory!

What do you do when the economy deals you a blow like it has so many of us in the last couple of years?

As we look around us we see so many people who have allowed the loss of a job or a career to wreck their lives.

Let me tell you my story of how, when one door closes in your face, there is always another one somewhere else that opens for you!

Sometimes the way God catapults us out of our comfortable complacency is to completely jerk the rug out from under our feet! It's the definition of a "wake up call!"

So what do we do when that happens? It can seem like our whole world is falling apart, especially when it's a financial problem.

I've learned that the best way to keep our attitudes up and keep pressing forward is to realize that finances, as important as they are, are only one part of our lives.

What has helped me tremendously is to make sure that I don't stop moving forward in all the other areas of my life.

This is the story of how, this past year, I've been able to set and achieve a huge goal for myself even while other parts of my life weren't perfect.

The funny thing is, I have never been a big goal setter before. I think that's going to change after this experience!

It all started about 5 or 6 years ago when the basketball team I played with kind of dissolved. I needed something to do to stay active, so I took up running.

I've never really been a distance runner before, but I figured that I could work into it and maybe even one day run a marathon.

For several years I did it fairly regularly but never very consistently. I had fun keeping myself motivated by keeping track of my Personal Records (PR's) at different distances.

Occasionally, I would run in a 5K race, just for fun, but the longest distance I had ever gotten to was 12 1/2 miles. That's a far cry from a full-blown marathon.

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Inspiration From Past Victories!

So last spring I was talking with another friend who was kind of a casual runner too and they suggested that we start training more seriously and do a half marathon at the end of the summer.

That sounded interesting, but I didn't think it would be much of a challenge. I figured there was a pretty good chance I could run one right then if I wanted to.

So the next day being a Saturday, I decided to give it a try. I made it 14 miles, slightly more than the 13.1 required for a half marathon, but it took everything I had!

As I was recovering from that, I was still being driven by the desire to set some kind of a big fitness goal for the next year to push myself towards.

With my construction business falling apart, I really needed a win in my life right now.

It was then that I remembered my grade school P.E. teacher Mr. Ken Harris and a contest that he created for all the kids in school from 5th through 12th grades. He called it the Mullinville 500!

The object was to start tracking our running and walking mileage and see if we could accumulate 500 miles, no matter how long it took. No pressure. You could totally do it at your own pace.

The funny thing was, I was one of the first 10 kids to finish out of the whole school! I also held the record for several years of being the youngest one to finish by more than a year.

It took me 2 years to do it back then as a fifth and sixth grader.

So fast-forward to 2010, almost 40 years later. Could I, at 49-50 years old possibly do it again, but this time in only 1 year?

As I started calculating what it would take, I realized that if I'd just do a 4 mile run with a half mile warm-up and a half mile cool down walk 3 times a week, I'd easily get it done in a year. That would even allow for several bad weather days in the winter and spring!

Hmmm... so why not?

Plus, by being consistent, maybe I'd be able to get in good enough shape to do a half marathon a little easier. Then the big one! Wouldn't it be cool if I could actually finish a full marathon? That would be a big check mark off of the ole "bucket list" for me!

So I created for myself what I called the IPFC 500! The International Personal Fitness Challenge!

As part of my goal I created several different charts and then some award certificates with my IPFC 500 logo on them, that I could earn for reaching certain milestones along the way.

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Can Your Goal Become An Obsession?

Now I had a goal! To run/walk 500 miles between June 1, 2010 and May 31, 2011! I also had the means to track myself and reward myself for achieving it.

What happened next has literally boggled my mind!

What started out as a simple goal to keep up my basic normal pace, except to become consistent with it, soon became an obsession!

I started out the first month on my 4 miles 3 times per week plan with some longer runs thrown in on the weekends.

Then the second month two things happened. Because of my consistency, I started getting in better shape and consequently started breaking some of my long time PRs!

Secondly, I ended up going over 100 miles for the month! I had never really planned for that to happen.

So in August, I decided to step up the pace to 5 miles 3 times a week. Nothing that spectacular happened and I didn't quite hit 100 miles that month but it did set me up for a great September!

I was cookin' in September! I broke 9 personal records that month, almost 1 every other time I ran! I was feeling great!

Then as the end of the month drew nearer, it dawned on me that if I could step up the pace just a little bit more, I was on track to hit my 500 mile goal by the end of October! That was only five months into my year!

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Chasing A Dream!

This is where the real obsession began!

I'd tried a couple of times to run a marathon on my own around our area, but had only made it 16 and 20 miles respectively. By the end of September I felt I was ready to try again.

On the morning of October 1, I headed out. The area we live in is laid out in 1 mile square blocks, so it makes it pretty easy to track your distance.

5 hours and 8 minutes later I put a big fat check mark on one of my lifetime dreams of completing a full marathon!

It really went fairly well too. I didn't experience running into "the wall" that most people talk about. But rather, just kept plugging along till it was finished!

A lot of my friends were amazed that I could do it by myself without the pressure of competition to keep me going.

But I was just getting rolling!

On my next 2 runs I smashed a couple of more PR's again! I ended the month with 6 new PR's including running a half marathon on each of the 4 weekends after the full marathon!

I closed out October with 510 total miles on my charts!

Mission accomplished!

I had never pushed so hard for a goal in my life! I couldn't believe that I had actually run 500 miles in 5 months! That was a huge morale booster!

It also proved to me that I could actually set a goal and be driven to achieve it! Maybe there were some lessons to be learned here!

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Pursuing Excellence Has A Price!

But wait... We are not done yet!

I still had 7 months left in my year! Could it be possible that even with Idaho's nasty winter and spring weather, that I could get in another 500 miles and actually hit 1000 before my original deadline?

Hmmm... let's go for it!

Almost immediately I hit some huge obstacles to that goal.

I hadn't done enough studying to know that you are supposed to take a 3 week break from running after you finish a marathon to give your body adequate recovery.

Oooops! I don't think that running 110 miles including 4 half marathons in the next four weeks, quite fits that proper training picture!

I quickly found out that I had hugely elevated my lactic acid levels and that my potassium and electrolyte levels were seriously depleted.

For the next 3 months, I literally could barely run and ended up with pulled muscles in my legs 3 or 4 times. It was frustrating!

But I kept on persevering. When I couldn't run, I would walk. Unless the temperature was below zero, I'd still get out and do 4 miles or so. I learned not to listen to "Eye of the Tiger"and other motivational music on my iPod because it would get my adrenaline up and I'd blow another muscle out!

By the end of January, I had only added another 116 miles in three months, but I was starting to feel better.

The next problem was that February in Idaho is a very cold month and then March through May tend to be cold, very windy and miserable.

How bad did I want this goal? 1000 miles in a year was something that I never imagined I could do, even when I started this journey.

Here it was, well within my reach if I could just buckle down, deal with the weather and stay healthy.

I needed to put together almost 4-100 mile months to put this thing in the bag!

So I settled into just disciplining myself and getting consistent.

Bad weather... Oh well!

I managed my way through February and ended up right at 100 miles.

Then into March. At first it was still really cold but then it started to warm up. Unfortunately with the warmer temperatures (if you call low to mid 30's warmer) also came the spring winds. Most days in the spring here there can be anywhere from 5 to 45 mph "breezes" and usually on the higher end of that scale.

Let me tell you, running into a stiff breeze in the cold weather of spring is way worse than running in a snowstorm in January.

When the wind feels like it's a hand on your chest holding you back, those miles can take forever to add up!

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What Is The Price Of Your Victory?

But... How bad did I want that goal? Apparently, pretty bad!

I found myself drawn to be out running the roads no matter how bad the weather got. I remember one day trying to go 14 miles on a cold, windy, rainy day. I just couldn't make it. I totally ran out of gas at 12 miles and had to call home for a ride. But two days later, I was back out running again!

Then towards the middle of April and beginning of May I realized that I really was going to make it!

I finished another 100+ mile month in April and that left me less than 75 miles to go in May! That should be a piece of cake!

Plus, by now my body was fully recovered and back in great shape again! On my second run in May, despite the cold weather, I completely obliterated my best 6 mile time ever by almost a full minute. The funny thing was I didn't set out to do that. I just realized at about the 3 mile mark that I was ahead of my fastest pace ever!

So here it is May 12th. Yesterday I did a 6 miler that put me at 979 miles! That leaves me almost 3 weeks left to either run a marathon or put in less than an average week of running! I'll finish up what's probably the biggest, toughest physical goal that I've ever set for myself!

Now, I realize that a lot of big-time marathon runners probably put in a lot more miles than that every year to keep themselves in shape.

But I am just an average guy who took up running for fun and has done something that most people can't even fathom! Almost everyone I talked to about it just shakes their head in disbelief. It's one of those things that allows me the sense of accomplishment of having done something that most people aren't even willing to try!

Those are the kinds of victories that change your life!

Not necessarily that you were the best that ever lived at something, but that you proved to yourself that through a lot of discipline and hard work, that you could accomplish something you never thought possible!

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Victory Brings Belief In Yourself!

For me, the take-home lesson from this past year, is to look at the rest of my life and determine in what other areas I can set similar goals. Goals that will drive me almost to an obsession to get better and accomplish some more things that I really dream of making happen!

Life is out there for the taking. Many people just naturally take to the goal setting process and it becomes a way of life for them.

There are a large percentage of the rest of us though for whom goal setting is not a part of our lives.

Some of us find it so uncomfortable, or have never found something we wanted bad enough to discipline ourselves to get it. Others of us, like me for instance, have found that the simple act of setting a goal would trigger some unfathomable rebellion response deep down inside us and we just wouldn't do it. Strange... I know... But real.

What I learned from this experience is that the goal has to be 100% completely my own, not something that someone else imposed on me or even suggested. But instead something that, deep down inside of me, I really wanted to accomplish whether it made any sense to anyone else or not.

When it was my own real heartfelt dream, then I would chase it until it became an obsession to get it. No pulled muscles, nasty weather, or disbelieving naysayers would keep me from getting it!

What is it in your life that you secretly want that badly? If you don't have something like that, I challenge you to start digging. Find something! Rekindle an old dream! Find something that you have to stretch to get and then create a plan for yourself. Create some charts and track your performance. Reward yourself.

Take my word for it, the sense of accomplishment that you feel from a victory like this will bolster your belief in yourself tremendously!

That's what we need in these times that try men's souls, the self-respect and sense of accomplishment that comes from the victories that we can all have in our lives!

Each one of us is capable of winning and excelling at something in our lives! Whoever you are, what ever your situation may be, you can have a victory in your life! In fact, you can have as many victories as you choose because you don't have to beat someone else to do so.

And...who knows? You might just inspire someone else along the way!

You only have to overcome yourself!!!

To wrap up this article here are the stats from a couple of my charts just for fun!

Cumulative Total Miles By Month

June 1,2010.................0 miles
June 30,2010..............71 miles
July 31,2010..............174 miles
August 31,2010..........268 miles
September 30,2010.....373 miles
October 31,2010.........510 miles!!!
November 31,2010.....550 miles
December 31,2010.....578 miles
January 31,2011.........626 miles
February 28,2011.......726 miles
March 31,2011............826 miles
April 30,2011.............929 miles
May 12,2011..............979 miles

21 more to go!!!

My Personal Records (PR's)

100 meters.............13.56 sec '06
200 meters............28.06 sec '06
1/4 mile...................1:03 min '06
1/2 mile...................2:42 min '07
1 mile...............................6:15 '10
2 miles..........................14:36 '08
5 kilometers................25:02 '08
4 miles...........................31:41 '10
5 miles...........................41:45 '10
6 miles...........................50:13 '11
8 miles........................1:11:47 '10
12 miles......................1:57:26 '10
14 miles......................2:16:57 '10
16 miles.....................3:09:26 '10
20 miles.....................3:48:22 '10
26.2 miles.................5:08:00 '10
(First ever Marathon!)
Best Distance In 1 Hr...7.1 miles
Max Distance..............26.2 miles
Most miles Per Month..........137
Most Miles 7 Days...................45
Total 1/2 marathons/yr..........9