Hello again,

I’m five days into my goal of running sixty miles in the month of November, in honor of the sixty men who take their own lives per hour globally. My thought was, if I run two miles every day for the entire month, I get to sixty. Five days in I’m at eleven and a half miles, a bit ahead of schedule. It’s honestly been a very intense and eye opening five days. Running makes me feel great, energized, healthy. Day five is the first time I feel like I gave up on my run.

A little over a mile in, the fastest mile I’ve ever ran I might add, I had to use the bathroom. When I started running again after I lost all my momentum. My legs felt funny, and I had zero motivation to keep going. I told myself just get to the two mile mark and get it over with. A mile and a half in I decided to stop. For no more than thirty seconds I felt like I failed. I use the Nike running app to track my runs, at the end of the run, it gave me a message. It said progress is progress no matter how much.

Maybe I didn’t fail by stopping my run early, I mean I was two miles ahead of where I needed to be going into today, so I actually didn’t need to run at all.

Progress is progress, right?

This is honestly shocking to me, that an app would make me realize something I really need to be reminded of at this moment in my life. I guess it’s not about how far I run, or for how long, what matters is that I ran, right?

I think moments like this sometimes feel like epiphanies for me. I know that probably sounds ridiculous, but I’ve always been the person that sets the goal, and if I don’t make it to the goal, then I’ve failed. That thinking is black and white, and this world is very gray. Maybe I didn’t hit the goal, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t make progress towards it, that doesn’t mean I can’t continue to progress towards it.

I guess a lot of people probably have already come to this realization in life and I’m a day late and a dollar short. Anyways it made me realize something, something I’d like to share with you and end this blog with.

You only fail when you stop trying. As long as you continue to try you’ll continue to progress, and any progress is good progress.

Progress is progress, right?

It doesn’t matter how much, it just matters that you tried.

Be kind to yourselves, enjoy the week ahead.

Happy Sunday.

Where the skies are gold not gray,

J.