You have to know who you are and what you’re capable of. In running this means learning your pace and learning how far you can push before your body breaks down. There is a fine line between pushing too much and not pushing enough. If you push yourself too hard your body can break down and injuries begin to pile up. If you don’t push yourself enough, you may finish races but you will always wonder what you left on the course and how much faster you could have finished.
Mid-week runs are “base runs” for a reason. Base runs help you find your “sweet spot” so you can begin to push just enough on each consecutive run. Training is a balancing act which requires you to be brutally honest with yourself in assessing whether you coasted through a run, pushed it through a run or pressed yourself into injury.
In our lives being brutally honest with ourselves is also important. I call it taking the mask off. We all wear masks. These masks deny who we really are and delay our ability to accept ourselves as we are. You must build your base, remove the mask and begin to live the you that you were created to be. To do this is going to take the very same step as building your base in running – you must be brutally honest with yourself and begin to ask some basic questions of yourself. Who are you in your unguarded moments? In other words you’re by yourself, you don’t have to pretend to be strong for everybody, no need to post a selfie on Facebook and who are you in this moment? When you’re just chilling out with friends what do you like to do? Are you the talker, the listener, the one with the jokes, the one who drinks too much, the one who sits by themselves, the one in control and planning everything? Answering these questions goes a long way towards finding out who you are but it isn’t like a day process, this is going to take some time so be patient with yourself and find your rhythm, your true rhythm. Once you find this person you will be well on your way to running your own race with perseverance.
Living an ultra life is setting aside the mask and revealing the real you to yourself.