How Many More?

Someone recently looked at me with a little more than a little amusement on her face and asked me, "Geeze, how many more people are you going to inspire?" So that made me cry. But also, it made me think of the post where I quoted Marc Parent as saying, "The first person you have to inspire every day is yourself."

Sometimes it's really easy to impress other people. As another dear person in my life is fond of saying, "Just set that bar low enough and you can crawl right over it." But I'm not that person. I'm the person who's bar is really really high. And if I keep aiming for THAT damn bar I'm almost certain to disappoint myself. So I need to find a way to inspire myself apart from setting unrealistic (or even realistic) expectations.

I think the answer lies not in what I'm expecting of myself in the future, but in all of the insane accomplishments that I've put down behind me. Since I'm on a quoting roll, there's a DetermiNation ad that says, "If you can run, you can run further. If you can train, you can train harder. And if you do, you can fight cancer." Well, I can run; I can train; and I can fight. Forget about the "harder" part. Just the fact that I've done those three things might be enough to power me through the next tough weeks of speed work.