40% Of Your Capacity

I am running strong right now. I feel good and strong. Sticking to a plan feels great too. It is honestly the best I’ve ever felt in a training block.

What is really cool too is that I’m finding out just how much is in the mind. David Goggins made this popular with his first book, Can’t Hurt Me, which is incredible if you haven’t read or listened to it. In there he talks about your mind making you want to quit when you are only at 40% of your potential. In this training run building up to 100 miles, I can see that.

This weekend was a test for it. Saturday I ran 14 miles. The last 3 of those, I was chaffing really bad on my thighs. Every step hurt. I grunted through them because 14 miles was on my training plan. Then on Sunday by the time I got to the gym, I had 80 minutes to get in as many miles as possible. Since 10 miles was on my plan for Sunday.

I ran 8.42 miles in 76 minutes. That’s just over a 9-minute mile. My standard time for the rest of my runs has been 10-11 minutes per mile. All because I had this clock on me, I was able to run faster. Telling me that it’s all in my mind. Physically I could run faster, but my mind wouldn’t push there on its own.

When you think about this, how incredible is that? I think it is pretty incredible that we have so much untapped potential just lying inside ourselves and that we can all do more than we think. We have the power to open up so many doors and so many possibilities just by believing in ourselves to do it.

The best part is, you don’t have to run a marathon, let alone train for a 100-mile race to see this in yourself. At any point, you can make a decision to change the entire trajectory of your life. I mean, I’ve only been on this training plan for 2 weeks and I can start to see just how incredible the changes are. I can see how strong I am and how sticking to this training plan will make me incredibly strong by the time I run 100 miles.

Having and sticking to the plan also gives me incredible belief in myself. Amazing how just a few short weeks can lead to such improved times. Improved confidence. Improved strength and endurance.

The feats which we are all capable of is amazing to me. There are some cool people out there doing some really cool things. All because they made a decision, stuck to it, and saw it through. Now of course there are levels to everything and I’m sure that I’ll see and develop more levels as I go through the next 6 months of training.

Boy oh Boy this is going to be fun!