When I first started running, I didn’t consider myself a runner. In fact, it took quite a few marathons and years of running before I became comfortable calling myself a runner. While I felt accomplished having run multiple marathons, all my times were well over 4 hours and I had no hope of ever running faster or improving my races. We spoke of Boston and what it took to qualify, but that wasn’t even a consideration for me. There was no way I could run fast enough or be on par with Boston athletes!

Fast forward to one winter when my friend and mentor, Carrie, said she wanted to increase her mileage and work up to running six days a week for spring race training. Did I want to join her? Well, I hopped in with both feet, having no idea of what I was going to accomplish or why I was doing it. I found myself working harder than I ever had before and began to take my training seriously.

Honestly, the only goal I had for that race was to run start to finish and not walk those last miles like I always did in races. Much to my surprise, I ran all 26.2 miles and I ran them strong, all the way to a 30 minute PR! I was astounded. Then came the most surprising realization-  that new PR put me just five minutes away from a BQ. What had once been just a dream had now become a possibility.

The fire was lit. I now had a belief that I could accomplish the seemingly impossible. I held onto that belief, nurturing it and letting it propel me into training harder and pushing myself beyond previously unbreakable limits. This lead to another 22 minutes shaved off my PR and my hard earned BQ.

We need both hard work and belief, working hand in hand, to truly succeed in any area of life. Belief is what propels us to do the hard things, to become the person who achieves impossible goals.

But where does that belief come from? Sometimes we must see something- a little spark of success, a glimpse into the future- to get that belief growing inside us. We must never hesitate to work hard, to keep pushing forward even if we don’t yet see where that work is going to take us. Then as we catch a view in our mind’s eye, we can hold onto it with everything we have and let it work within us until we become the person who achieves unbelievable goals.

In my case, I was lucky enough to have Carrie inviting me along her journey to help me find my spark. This is why we created The Marathon Mind- to help others find their sparks of success, build beliefs, and reach impossible goals.