The Starting Line
This is what I love about the marathon.
Before the starting line, life is crowded.
Worries stack up.
Concerns loop.
Other people’s opinions take up more space than they deserve.
Money.
Identity.
Who’s watching.
Who’s ahead.
At the starting line, all of that still exists, but it loosens its grip.
Not because it’s resolved.
Because it can’t come with you.
I don’t think about racing here.
I don’t think about winning.
I think about stripping things down enough to take the first step honestly.
The Path
Once the race settles, the work becomes simple.
The next step.
Then the one after that.
Sometimes the mind wanders.
That’s normal.
And that’s usually when the pace drifts.
When effort leaks.
When you’re moving, but not present.
The best races are the ones where presence lasts longer.
Not perfectly.
Just longer.
Those are the races where you notice people.
A shared smile.
A short sentence.
A quiet acknowledgment between strangers moving in the same direction.
You’re competing, in a way.
But for most of us, it’s not really against each other.
There will always be someone ahead.
The real negotiation is internal.
With impatience.
With ego.
With the urge to prove something early.
There are moments where the correct choice is restraint.
Where walking is accuracy, not failure.
Where letting people go keeps you honest.
The hills make that clear.
So I slow down.
I walk when walking is right.
I stay with the plan even when it looks unimpressive.
Not because I lack ambition.
Because I understand the goal.
The Finish Line
The finish line isn’t about a number.
It’s about whether you arrive intact.
Clear.
Still curious.
There’s an English phrase I come back to often:
Live to fight another day.
I don’t hear aggression in it.
I hear continuity.
It means leaving something unused.
It means choosing presence over performance.
It means staying in the game long enough to keep learning.
For the average marathoner, progress isn’t always a faster time.
Sometimes it’s better decisions.
More patience.
More respect for the moment you’re in.
There will always be someone in front of us.
But we can always be better than the person we were before.
Not just in racing.
In how we move through the race of life.
That’s why I keep lining up.
That’s the win.
One Way Grit 