I needed to go out and run this morning and I needed to do it slowly and carefully given my recovering injured left achilles (it flared up again after 4 days of being ok na). For the entire run I was always paying attention to how the ankle and foot felt. I found myself feeling like running was work.  I was getting preoccupied with how I was performing and started measuring how much better I needed to be. I wasn’t really enjoying it anymore. Somewhere near the end of the 45 minutes, I put my right hand on my chest, started patting, and telling myself.  “It’s ok. It’s going to be ok. You don’t have to be at 100%.”

At that moment I realized that what was happening to me in the run, was what was happening to me at work. I was getting pre-occupied with needing to perform and beating myself over being less than how I thought I needed to be. The run reminded me that it’s ok not be at 100% all the time.

And that’s one reason why I do it. Running and triathlon can be an honest mirror of where you are and how you are.  There’s something about the physical effort that can keep you honest or make you see something that’s right under your nose, and that’s been there all this time. And sometimes, the sport can show you what you need to know to move forward with a little more grace.  For the things that tend to be true in running tend to be true also in life.  Today, the truth was: it’s ok not to be at 100% all the time.