As you can probably tell from my Strava runs, I’ve been running quite a bit – I believe in being consistent. Just a few days ago I ran a track that was 22.28 km. The distance was not important but it was actually completing the track that made it worthwhile.
Why is this related to Overcoming Obstacles?
Last year on the 20th April, it was the first time I tried running the track and I failed. I failed because at the 16km mark, it felt like I hit a brick wall and couldn’t run any further. That track has lots of hills and the elevation gain on the run was 169m.
I can honestly say I wasn’t prepared, I wasn’t ready and I didn’t even have any water with me – it was also a hot day which made the experience even worse. I actually stopped near a public park and I was fortunate there was a bubbler. I normally don’t drink from bubblers (I don’t like drinking unfiltered water) but in this particular case, I swallowed my pride and just needed to rehydrate so I drank the water. I shamefully walked the rest of the distance back which was around 6km and during the walk back I had to stop a few times – I literally just lied down on the floor and rested. It was something I’ve never experienced before and in one sense I was a bit anxious whether this feeling was going to go away and more importantly not knowing what was happening to my body.
On the way home I also walked into Woolworths and purchased a bottle of Gatorade so I could further rehydrate. It took about 40 minutes to walk home and when I did finally reached home, I took a shower and went straight to bed.
So for that run, I failed miserably and ever since I’ve been hesitant to try it again. Simply put, I was AFRAID I would fail again. The thought of trying this run again just made me think of the pain and the feelings I had.
I decided to take the plunge when I reached a milestone in my life and I was curious to see if I could overcome this obstacle. I decided to try it again even thought in the back of my mind my legs wouldn’t probably cope well since I’ve been running on a daily basis for over 200 days.
Leading up to the day of the run, I was still hesitating thinking that I was not ready at all. On the actual day of the run, I decided to be a bit more prepared this time and ate a banana for breakfast and drank some Hydralyte with water. I also took with me a banana, a bottle of water with Hydralyte and some sweets. The doubts grew stronger during the first few kms of the run and I thought of just maybe doing 10 km and not run that track at all.
As I was approaching the junction of turning right to run the track, I decided to not think about it too much and to just do it – “What would be the worse thing that could happen” I said to myself? I’ve experienced the failure before so there was nothing to lose. So I continued with the run. The run wasn’t easy because of the constant hills but I managed to actually complete the run. Yuppie! I felt like I achieved something and overcome a big obstacle.
For my young readers out there, in business and in life, we will hit into many roadblocks and most often will fail miserably. My advice is if you run into a roadblock and fall, we must pick ourselves up, dust off the bruises, continue with the initial goal and be more prepared for the next roadblock. Not just physically but our minds must be strong.
So after reading this article, go out there and achieve something great!
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I am an entrepreneur based in Sydney Australia. I was born in Vietnam, grew up in Italy and currently residing in Australia. I started my first business venture Advertise Me from a random idea and have never looked back since. My passion is in the digital space, affiliate marketing, fitness and I launched several digital products. You will find these on the portfolio page.
I’ve decided to change from a Vegetarian to a Vegan diet and started a website called Veggie Meals.
I started this blog so I could leave a digital footprint of my random thoughts, ideas and life in general.
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