That first step is so, so hard. Like diamond hard.

As if you’re paralyzed from the waist down, that first step can seem herculean in proportion.

Why is that? I’ve taken so many steps, why is this one hard? Because this is one of the first steps where I’m seeking:

• Recognition
• Acceptance
• Approval
• Permission
• License

Maybe you’ve been training for the marathon for six months, but today is the day you’re going to run it. The clock above that finish line isn’t in your pocket, you have no control over it, it’s someone else’s clock. Oh, there are also thousands of others running the same race and they’re running their own race for their own reasons.

Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you. — Aldous Huxley

But is it their race, your race or “our” race? No, it’s your race. Unless you’re really competing for that top spot (are you Kenyan?), then the race is yours and there is really no one you’re up against except yourself.

You know if you’re good, if you’ve trained, if you’re trying, if you’re giving it your best effort. Isn’t that what’s important? Sure, others, strangers, onlookers will be asking about your time, but you know the time that’s important to you and you also know that it’s not so much this day as race day but it’s every day that’s led up to this day–and the days after.

• Possible: train for the marathon
• Impossible: win the marathon
• Repossible: run the marathon