My daily personal best……………

I would like to share insights about running and its role in my life.

I feel I am at my daily personal best mentally, physically and emotionally with running in my life which is more important than ever now that my daughter Maribel is here.

Marathon training is at least a 13 week process to build up your speed and endurance. In my first marathon I missed qualifying for Boston by 52 seconds or 2 seconds per mile. I had failed and yet I had given this race my all concidering I had made the neophyte marathoner’s mistake of eating a bunch of salad the night before. I trained again with some critical changes to my regimen and ran Chicago, achieving a qualifying time goal.

There are two keys that help me achieve my running goals:

1. I go out and do it everyday. There are days when I feel like hell and the last thing I want to do is run. So, I go out with the understanding that I will run 1 mile and then see if I feel like running more. That thought gets me out the door. For these days, I have developed my own mantra: “One more mile, just one more mile” to get to the end of the run. I know in the back of my mind that I am too stubborn to return unless I have run at least 4 miles. I discovered an exception to that rule two months ago after giving birth to my daughter. I was never so happy to have some feeling of a return to normalcy after having been able to run 2 miles 4 days after her birth.

2. I expect great as well as poor performance days. One or several poor performance days means that I am gearing up for a great performance day or I really need a day off.

In any case, I always feel ready for my day ahead for having done something, even if it was my worst running day ever.

To run or work or raise a family or any of life’s persuits, we may miss the mark and make mistakes. This may or may not lead to qualification or success, but continually developing strategies and persevering always gives us the best chance to overcome whatever distance we may need to run.

The key here is that its not just about the finish line but about the process getting there: giving your daily personal best.

I light this chalice in honor of our daily personal best.

I light the chalice to honor bold life choices we sometimes must make, to honor wise value shifts we sometimes must pursue, to honor courageous decisions that point us to relationships that are the most precious in life.