Inspiration and Leadership

I know I have covered this subject in the past, but bear with me...

Goat and I had a couple good 10 milers this past weekend. My only other run for the week was 5 miles on the treadmill on Monday morning. All said...it was about 25 miles for the week. Eh, not quite what I was hoping, but better than nothing I suppose. We kept a decent pace on Saturday, but Sunday was slow in the snow. Ahhh, the snow was indeed beautiful, and I wish I had brought the camera to share it with all of you.

So, today was a rather stressful day at work and other things have had me on edge, so I really needed to run. After leaving work at 6:30 tonight, I went straight to the gym. My plan was to slog through some decent miles regardless of how long or how slow. I felt slow and clunky at the start. My first mile was somewhere north of 9 min pace. Ugh! After a bit I settled into a 8 min pace and then dropped it into a 7:30 pace. At around 25 minutes I started feeling really worked, and started wondering how I could hold the pace for another 35 minutes. I sat there watching Tiger Woods and his mistresses flash across the TV screen more times than I care to recall. Is there no one left in sports that is a decent guy?

Then I thought about my friends. I thought about real people that inspire me and hope that in some small way I may equally inspire them.

I thought about Matt Estes: one of the best ultrarunners in the country trying to figure out how to manage a demanding job and ultra training. I thought how I'd love to see Matt pull off a victory in a 100 miler while working the long hours that many of us grind out. I know he can do it. I know we can all do it.

I thought about Captain Bill with a very demanding job and a very full family life, and how he managed to do a major trail marathon this weekend. Yeah, he put in more miles in one day than I have in the past 3 days. Way to go, Capt! There's leadership for you!

I thought about the Goat putting in the miles despite being sick all week and pondering the Vermont 100 for 2010 despite having a demanding job.

I thought about many of you out there who get up before dawn and put in your miles before the rest of us get out of bed.

Yes, YOU were the source of my inspiration as I started cranking the pace down. I got my 8 miles in an hour and worked up a good sweat in the process. I had a spring in my step as I thought of my friends pounding out the miles.

Thank you all for being an inspiration and providing some leadership to the rest of us. Power on folks!

Steve