Resolutions

So...this is it. The big December 31st. Midnight tonight will be it is officially the start of a whole new year. If any of you, like myself, saw the New Years Eve movie then you are probably going out tonight with extremely high expectations. But hey, anything can happen right?

All athletes know that come tomorrow, their lives will be made that much more difficult. Starting tomorrow, all new years resolutionists will crowd the gyms taking all of the machines and making a normal 30 minute session turn into a 2 hour session. Do not get me wrong, I admire and respect everyone who tries to better themselves by getting their body into shape. I have raved about the benefits of exercise and believe everyone should try it.

What confuses me, however, is why tomorrow is of such significance. Yes, it is a new year, but in reality isn't it also just the start of another day? What does tomorrow's significance have to do with us attempting to do things differently? Tomorrow, like yesterday and Wednesday, is just another day in our lives. I guess the point I'm trying to make is why wait for the new year to become a better person?

Many of us will try to be nicer to others, exercise more, do better in school, forgive someone, apologize to someone, give someone a second chance, etc. Tomorrow we will start attempting to accomplish the goals we make for ourselves for the upcoming year. However, instead of viewing each year as a chance to better ourselves, we should focus on each day. Each day presents us with another opportunity to better ourselves. Instead of deciding that next year will be the year you finally begin talking to your mother, or next year will be the year you begin your diet, start today. Start now. Do not wait for each year to pass. Yes, make new years resolutions, but when they are done, make more resolutions.

Each day is an opportunity for us to begin anew. Each day holds the same significance that new years holds.

Make your new years resolutions, complete them, and make more resolutions. Better yourself each and every day.

Fighting

What do we do when we feel as if we are constantly being knocked down? How can we respond positively when each attempt we create only leads to more failure? Where is the end of the road of struggle?


Running has the ability to bring a "feel-good" attitude into peoples lives. Whether we are competing or not, running is scientifically proven to release hormones that make you happier. Add to that the success that all runners face at some point and the sport clearly has a strong impact on the positive mindset of a person. However, few people outside of the sport and, in fact, few inside the sport, can understand the negative mindset running can instill on its participants.

Running is said to be a sport where the more you put in, the more you get out. There comes a point when this statement becomes obsolete. There comes a point when you are constantly knocked down. There comes a point when each attempt at success leads to failure. There comes a point when you wonder whether or not it is worth it all.

Why is this important?

It is another valuable lesson we have the opportunity to learn.

We will face situations in our lives when we wonder whether the fight is even worth it. Maybe it is a student who struggles to get through school. Maybe it is a woman fighting cancer who struggles to get through the day. Maybe it is a drug addict who struggles to stay clean. We all struggle with things throughout our lives and whether or not these things are small or large they are always worth the fight.

We need to continue to fight. Fighting is the reason we live. We live to battle our weaknesses and prove to ourselves that we can come out on top.

Fighting gives us hope. Hope to persevere. Hope to push forward. Hope for the future.

It's only the end of a chapter

Ten years ago I started something in order to be involved and make friends. I joined my middle school track team in 7th grade for the simple reason that my parents forced me to get involved. The fall of that same year I decided that it was time for me to abandon my less than mediocre soccer career to join the Cross-Country team. I joined because I was a weak and thin-skinned 12 year old who liked the warm, loving nature of the cross-country coach more than the emotionless, stoic personality of the soccer coach.

I never would have thought that that decision would have shaped my life immensely.

Flash forward almost 10 years. Tomorrow, I will toe the line for my last collegiate cross-country race.

I have been with this sport for 10 years, almost half my life. To say that tomorrow will be an emotional day for me is a HUGE understatement. It will probably be a day I will remember forever, but not only because of the fact that I stuck with a sport for 10 years.

Tomorrow will be a day to remember because of the blessings running has bestowed upon me.

I found my passion and it has provided me with more smiles then I could have ever imagined.

Find your passion and realize that it will never be perfect, but it will be yours.

Defining

I don't know where we went wrong. I'm sure my 8 teammates who were with me along with my coach are all thinking that same thought. The truth is, none of us know where we went wrong. We felt ready and we felt determined. All of us had the same thoughts going into Saturdays race. We were returning 4 of our top 5 from last years 10th place team and we were coming off a solid performance at the conference meet the week before.

We felt like we were the team.

I guess we weren't.

The truth is, this blog post has been written and deleted numerous times. I just don't know what to write. I want to write, but cannot think of what to write. I don't want to talk about everything working out for a reason or you win some you lose some. I don't even want to talk about how running isn't everything or how you cannot define yourself by one moment. I don't want to write about these things because it would be shallow of me to write about something I did not firmly believe in.

Do I think we are good? Yes, I think we are great, but 10 years from now no one will care about what I think. Ten years from now people will only look back at the results and those results say we weren't good.

There are many different variables that go into racing. Variables that to the outside eye are non-existent. Variables such as the 40 mph winds we ran into or the pancake flat course we ran on. Yet none of these variable matter. We did not show up when we needed to. Do I think we can bounce back? Absolutely. We're too strong to not bounce back, but do I think it stings? Hell yes. This will sting for a very long time. This is be in the back of our minds for a very long time.

This will define us until we prove otherwise.

I guess that's how life works too. You are defined by your failures until you have enough success to prove to people otherwise.

We are allowed to be confused. We are allowed to question why, but above all, we must look ahead and prove to those outsiders that we are capable of much much more.

History

There's a saying that someone is crazy when they try to solve a problem the same way, each time expecting different results. We live in a world where we are suppose to learn from our mistakes. The best way to ensure history does not repeat itself is to learn from the mistakes we've made in the past. I've made plenty of mistakes in the past, we all have. The key is taking the mistakes we have made and turning them into a learning experience.

I ran the most miserable race of my life, on the biggest day of my life. When I toed the line for the NYS Cross-Country championships I did not know what I was going to do. You see the whole season I had trained for one thing: to make states. What I never thought of was what happens once I do that? I had set my goals and accomplished my goals. Therefore, I was toeing the line without any sense of what I was running for anymore. Yes, I wanted to perform well, but I wasn't half as prepared as I was the races leading to that moment.

Flash forward 4 years. After an eerily similar college running career, I find myself in a similar situation. Similar, but not the same. You see I had a goal this whole season and I was blessed enough to have accomplished that goal. This time around however, my goal had two parts. I planned ahead. I assumed that I would accomplish my first goal and focused solely on the second. When my first goal was in jeopardy, I stepped up to the challenge. Now however, there is no more looking back on that goal. I am here. It is now time to step up again. This time it is to take care of the second goal I have set for myself.

In life, we will always be setting goals. However, we fail to think about what happens once they are accomplished. We should always have multiple goals in our lives. We should always be striving for something. One belief I live by is that when a great accomplishment happens, relish in the moment, but then understand that there are many moments to come. When I was younger, I did not understand this concept. I relished in the one accomplishment I had achieved. I neglected to see that there were more accomplishments around the corner. I just needed to be ready.

Then I was not ready.

Now, I am.

Will you be ready?

Streaks

We sat at our MAAC Championship banquet and watched the Iona College Gaels walk up on stage to collect their championship trophy. We also sat there and listened to the MAAC commissioner comment about how it was their 21st consecutive MAAC title. For twenty one straight years they have won the MAAC title. That means that from the year I was born until today Iona has never lost a conference championship. It is a streak that I acknowledge is much more impressive then it is given credit for. However, as impressed by the streak as I am, there is always a common theme among streaks...They have to end.

They have won for 21 straight years, yet I could only sit there and think about the one year they don't win. I have never in my lifetime seen them lose, yet all I could think about was the one moment when they do. People might think I am crazy. I would most likely agree with them. I am crazy, but you have to be crazy in order to believe in what many people might call the impossible. All streaks end. It isn't a crazy concept that I've made up in my head. It is fact and it has numerous real-life examples that back it up.

Why am I writing about this? I'm writing about it because there will always be times in our lives when we feel down. There will always be times when we believe someone we work with, are friends with, or related to, gets everything they want. We will sit there an wonder why not us? We will wonder why, after all the hard work we put in, we are not getting what we deserve.

This streak has taught me one thing. What is going to happen that one day it comes to an end? Will we be too busy complaining that the opportunity passes us by? I've always believed that complacency is the enemy of victory. When you get what you want over and over again, how badly are you going to continue wanting it? How badly are you going to continue working for it? Sooner or later you will get lazy and assume it will just happen. On the other hand, when you are constantly denied something you feel is rightfully yours, that is when you are at your strongest. When you are the ones fighting for what you want, that is when you believe the most.

All streaks have to come to an end, but we need to be ready for the moment they do. We need to persevere and continue to inch forward step by step. It may take 10 years. It may take 20 years, but one day that streak will end and when it does we need to be ready.

Greatness is not a gift. Greatness is achieved.

End of the story

I went to watch a play today with my first grade class. Between telling them to be quiet and listening to them laugh hysterically at the butt of a baboon costume, I didn't really get to watch a lot of the play. However, there were certain parts I did catch and these parts had me thinking about the true message the play was attempting to get across.

The young boy in the story was on a journey to bring back the water supply to the world. He was chosen by some higher power to be the one to bring back the water supply. Throughout the play his journey brings him to collect certain tokens in order to find the heart of the sun. Once he finds the heart of the sun, he learned he needs to dive into this giant tree in order to complete his journey. At first he is hesitant and he asks his community leader what will happen to him. The community leader simply responds that he does not know. That part of the story has not been written yet.

That line really got me thinking. The end of our stories have not been written. We do not know what will happen tomorrow, or next week, or next year. However, one aspect the play touched upon was the fact that the young boy had a choice as to the direction the rest of his story would go. We are all faced with decisions and I think often times we neglect to see the importance of some of these decision. By making these decisions we are writing the next chapter in our lives.

I've been struggling lately with a certain chapter in my story. To be honest, I kept concerning myself with how other peoples stories were going. I forgot that regardless of how their stories go, I have the power to control mine. Just like the little boy in the fable I have a choice.

We all have a choice. We all have the power to shape our own stories. Sometimes we just don't realize it