Running Everyday for a Month: Lessons Learned

2 minute read

The #31for31 challenge began exactly one month ago today. 31 athletes committed to run 3.1 miles every day or any day in the month of March in honor of World Water Day, and in effort to raise funds for a clean water project in Ethiopia. I am sharing with you some lessons learned after finishing the month long challenge!

1. The hardest part happens in your head. Really, thinking about it. The best runs I have ever gone on are free of thought and full of awareness. Thinking about things can be hard, sometimes doing them is not as hard as anticipated. 

2. Sharing your goals can help you. There are studies about how important it is to share your goals, other findings about it mattering with whom you share your goals, and then even more research about the power of not sharing goals at all because it gives you a premature, motivation-diminishing praise. Everyone is different, and sharing the goal seemed to help me stay accountable. 

3. You might think taking days off running would give renewed energy, but it made it easier to adjust having it as a daily practice. Running every day makes it easier to….run every day. Doing it every day rather than taking an off day or running every other day, made it easier to run.

4. They say it takes 21 days to create a habit (or 66 depending on who you ask!), and I found it to be true with the #31for31 challenge. How do I know it has become a habit? When the desire to run feels like an urge stronger than the desire not to, it has become the new norm.

5.  Running outside in Maine during the month of March? Not ideal! Having a treadmill as a backup option helped on those days when outside running was especially cold, wet, or both. 

6. Progress matters more than perfection. Setting goals is accepting the risk that you may fail at reaching the goal. However, setting a goal propels you further than you would with no goal at all. I say, sign me up for failure when the other option is a failure to try.

7. Running can serve a much greater purpose than….running in loops around your neighborhood. The month may be over but the impact lives on. As a result of the 31 athletes participating and oh-so-generous donors, more than $2,900 has been raised for a clean water project in Ethiopia. 

Thank you to everyone who joined the #31for31 challenge. A shout-out 📢 goes to one very generous donor who matched every single dollar raised by our runners ($961!) and then one more individual who rose to the matching challenge with another large donation (of $620!). Big thanks also goes to Lock Laces for donating no-tie shoe laces for all our 31 runners.  You are the hope, the light, and the change our world needs!

👟 Special thanks to Newton Running for saving the day! I also learned during this challenge that I desperately needed new running shoes especially after running across Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire in 2020. The Newton Running team made sure my feet were happy during the challenge with some new shoes to cover the miles! 👟

Dare to Try

2 minute read

Would you rather be wrong about thinking you cannot run a marathon or right and actually run a marathon? 

Let’s chat about how just because you don’t think you can’t do something, doesn’t mean it’s true. 

Adventures have given me the opportunity to share my journeys and connect with people young and old, near and far. As an H2O for Life ambassador, it has been incredibly rewarding to see students take the message and run, walk, dance, craft, build, or do whatever is in their power to help with the global water crisis. There are also times where the very message I share, intended to encourage, uplift, and inspire is received with people sharing their doubts, fears, and limiting beliefs. 

The discouragement often would be, “I could never run a marathon”. Naturally, my next question would be, “Oh, you’ve tried? Which one did you try?” 

No one. 

Not one single person.

Never has anyone who shared this belief dared to try.

No one who has run a marathon did it without actually attempting it first. It is physically impossible to run a marathon unless you try. You must be willing to try, which means you must be willing to fail. Doubts need to be set aside to uncover and discover what is true and what is fear covering truth.

“I’d rather attempt to do something great and fail, than to attempt nothing and succeed.”

— Robert Schuller

I recently watched an uplifting movie based on a true story of someone who believed that they couldn’t run a marathon and later found out they were wrong. It is not the first time and it will not be the last time you hear a story like this one. That story can be yours. Maybe it’s not running, but whatever “your thing” is.

“You must be willing to give up what you are, to become what you want to be.”

— Orrin Woodward

To everyone who has ever told me that it would never be possible for them to run a marathon, I hope you are wrong. I was. Maybe it’s not a marathon, but another “I could never…” limiting belief that might not be true. Daring to try is a part of the process, and makes crossing that finish line all the more rewarding. 

I believe in YOU even and especially when you don’t. Your version of extraordinary is on the other side of trying, sometimes failing, and always trying again.

• Is there something you’ve always told yourself that you couldn’t possibly do? 

• How can you accept failure as part of the process instead of a personal failure?

• What would be the first step towards discovering your own possibilities?

Endurance: Faith Was My Missing Piece

3 minute read, 3 minute video

You have two friends and they both go on the same trip. They come back to you with stories to tell. The version shared by one friend is full of highlights, new memories & experiences, with every potential setback painted with a silver-lining. The version shared by your other friend is the complete opposite with every detail highlighted about their unmet expectations unfulfilled desires. Same journey, yet completely different experience.  

That is the same difference I have felt with developing a faith life behind & beyond my adventures. 

Arguably, the hardest part of setting off on an endurance challenge is failure. The bigger the challenge the bigger that potential becomes for failure. When you are challenging your limits, failure becomes a real possibility. What happens then?

If you try enough adventures, sooner or later, it happens. My greatest “failure” was during a non-stop 3,300-mile bicycle race called Race Across America. It was an attempt to break a world record, but instead I broke myself.

Check out this video about how success was found despite the failure.

Failing without faith is hard. In the past, I would be consumed with feeling like I left myself & others down. I would question if I tried hard enough or if I should even keep trying. Striving for perfection in endurance & achievement was an endless battle that left me arriving at one mirage to the next. Even with successful endurance feats, there was a sense of loss. My identity was closely tied to a particular achievement and without the goal, I felt lost. 

Here’s what happened when faith became part of my life. 

God: first. 

Endurance: second. 

I thought the problem was “endurance,” and therefore the solution was to entirely get rid of it, and so I committed to not doing any endurance challenges for a year. I learned that the problem wasn’t endurance, per se, but it was making endurance my “idol” or “god”. When anything but God comes first, even gifts & talents can become destructive and damaging. I had a gift with endurance but didn’t know how to steward it. Once the order was in a place it needed to be, endurance challenges & adventures transformed in a way that I never anticipated. They were filled with more joy, peace, and contentment. 

Knowing God and who He is all about also gave me a sense of peace knowing that His love doesn’t change depending on my success or failure.

Here’s why: God gave me my every ability. If it turned out that I failed to complete my latest challenge running 138-miles nonstop across Maine, would God be disappointed in me?

Nope. Nadda. Absolutely not. 

God doesn’t judge me on abilities He didn’t give me. I may judge myself and feel a sense of personal failure, especially if and when I care more about pleasing and serving myself than serving God and trusting His plan.

I used to believe that a Christian life was about what you give up or lose, but now I see how I was wrong. It’s about how much God desires to add to our lives and give to us for our good. Run or not, I have nothing to lose.