So I’m a few days removed from running my second marathon up in Corning, NY at the 32nd Annual Wineglass Marathon. The event was pretty great – awesome amenities, a really excellent finisher’s medal and even a free bottle of champagne.

Fancy schmancy stuff for running 26.2 miles in the mountains.

It’s funny, I initially believed that my training (especially after an IT band injury earlier in the year) would make the run easier.

Not at all.

Sure, I beat my personal record, so there’s that, but this was crazy challenging, like, soul searching, discovering new things about yourself challenging.

I’m not sure if this is because one’s confidence begins to degrade every mile over twenty or if its just how it goes. In training you have your good and bad runs, so maybe in a lot of ways this was a “bad” run that had “good” results.

I guess none of that matters. I challenged myself and finished. That’s all that really matters. In fact, just shy of mile 23, I ran into a couple walking the rest of the race. They were probably in their early 50’s and didn’t seem necessarily tired or out of it. They just seemed content to be with one another and smiled as they walked at a fairly slow pace. At this point, I was a little concerned that my left calf was about to seize up, so I stopped and made a little small talk.

They told me that they weren’t too worried about times or finishing the race running. None of that meant a thing. They’d proven they could do these events many times and now just preferred to enjoy the activity however it turned out.

I’m probably misquoting the guy, but he basically said, “You’ve already got the win around your neck. The medal’s just a way to notice it.”

Maybe it was the lack of glycogen reserves in my brain or maybe that really made sense, but it spurred a little spark in me. I smiled, wished the couple luck and pushed myself to finish the last two miles without walking – calf be damned.

I actually managed to spring the last quarter mile of the race.

My point?

Why should there be one?

Get out there.