Ever faced a daunting goal and wondered how to conquer it? I just completed a goal I made to myself 10 years ago. Amid the struggle and sacrifice, an unexpected joy and appreciation for life unfolded through each step taken towards the finish line. This personal journey of mine was not just about crossing the finish line, but the lessons unearthed along the way.
The journey doesn't end there. As I reflect on the winding path to my goal, we dive into the power of mentorship and owning your success. Mentors can guide you, but the triumph lies in your dedication. So, join me as we explore the importance of setting daily tasks, recognizing your progress, and the invaluable role of a mentor. Tune into this episode and find that spark you need to conquer your goals and aspirations.
Contact Thad - VictoriousVeteranProject@Gmail.com
Thanks for listening!
Ever faced a daunting goal and wondered how to conquer it? I just completed a goal I made to myself 10 years ago. Amid the struggle and sacrifice, an unexpected joy and appreciation for life unfolded through each step taken towards the finish line. This personal journey of mine was not just about crossing the finish line, but the lessons unearthed along the way.
The journey doesn't end there. As I reflect on the winding path to my goal, we dive into the power of mentorship and owning your success. Mentors can guide you, but the triumph lies in your dedication. So, join me as we explore the importance of setting daily tasks, recognizing your progress, and the invaluable role of a mentor. Tune into this episode and find that spark you need to conquer your goals and aspirations.
Contact Thad - VictoriousVeteranProject@Gmail.com
Thanks for listening!
You know, I was thinking about all of those 4am wake ups that I had, those long runs, those long solo runs in the cold, in the rain, the crappy weather, eating a salad when I really just wanted that double cheeseburger with bacon, grabbing a water instead of a beer and, more importantly, pushing through all those alarm clock moments when I really just wanted to lay back down in my really warm bed with my beautiful wife and getting up to go run. And it was if all those smaller daily victories that I had laid out over the last 6 months had hit me in this moment and they multiplied, giving me this huge, gigantic boost of not just energy but joy, giving me a ton of joy for life and gratitude for my wife, my family, and that was my take away from this entire race. I've always considered myself to be a very grateful and happy person. I love my wife, I love my kids. It really hit me right there, in this moment, that my joy, my happiness, is my responsibility. My family didn't change. I changed and when I changed, when I adjusted, I found a new peak of love and appreciation for them and love for my own life. And this, the same thing, is true for you. Everything you've ever wanted in your life is right there in your reach, and it's literally sitting right there waiting for you to shift that one thing that you know you need to do. Welcome to another episode of On your Lead. A point man in the military leads from the front, making the path clear and safe. My goal is to provide a point person or guide for you to follow, to help you build confidence and locate the next steps you need to take to achieve the life you want. My hope is that you take those steps then join us on the show to share your success so we can all follow On your Lead.
Speaker 1:Ten years ago, I moved to Colorado and I saw a picture I'll never forget. I saw this picture that said the Pikes Peak Marathon, and I immediately said I was like you know what I'm going to achieve, that I'm going to make that happen. At that point in time, I'd never run a marathon before, but I knew that I loved climbing several of Colorado's 14ers and I was like, well, that's a challenge I'm going to take, I'm going to do it. Fast forward a few years and I never thought much about it. It was always in the back of my mind, it was always lingering, but I'd never set up to achieve it. Three years ago I committed.
Speaker 1:There's a buddy of mine that said he wanted to do it and I was like you know what? I've always wanted to do it, let's make it happen. And so we did. We started to plan forward, we started to talk about it, we started to look into it. But then anybody that doesn't know, just to give some context the Pikes Peak Marathon is actually the toughest marathon in the country Not the toughest run, just the toughest marathon distance run. And so in order to do it, you actually have to qualify for it. You have to be able to send them a marathon time that will allow you to qualify, to be able to go attempt this run. And really, because it's such a difficult race, they want to make sure that you're able to complete it so you're not a safety risk, anything like that.
Speaker 1:So step one for me was to do a qualifying run to get a marathon distance run knocked out. So I picked a date. I picked a time that I felt like it was far enough out, that would give me enough runway in order to train up for it, in order to make it happen and fast forward really, really quickly up until my cutoff time where I actually had to have this qualifying run done and I failed to make it happen. I wasn't able to get this qualifying marathon done and I had all of the excuses in the world and I just didn't have the results. You know, at the end of the day, I didn't do the training, I didn't put the work in to make it happen. I was torn up. I swore that I was going to get over this. I swore that I was going to make it happen. It hit me in a really, really weird spot, because I hate saying I'm going to do something and then not completing it. And that's what had happened.
Speaker 1:And so this time, knowing that I was like you know what, next year this is not going to happen, I'm going to make this run happen, I'm going to get after it. This is going to be something that I do, and so I chose a. There was a half marathon coming up that was about four to six months out from this point in time, so I signed up for it. And then, four to six months after that run, I found another full marathon that was being run and I signed up for that one, and I knew that with these two runs, stair stepped out, if I got ready for the half I could do that and then I could step up and do this full marathon. And so I knew these smaller goals, that I was going to be able to stack them up and be able to hit this big goal, which is to qualify for this Pikes Peak marathon. And, you know, really fast forward through all of that. I did the half, I did the full and I was able to qualify. I was able to qualify and get signed up and then it was go time. It's time to prep for this pike speak marathon.
Speaker 1:And I had been running a little bit, but I I don't say I was taking it super serious. But my buddy fortunately, he sent me this Marathon training plan and I was basically in look like an Excel document that told you every single day what you need to be doing, all the way till race day, and whether it was a run day or rest day. I told you the distance you need to run and, having felt the failure of what I previously hadn't done, what I didn't do to get ready for that qualifying time, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was like, well, if I'm gonna do this, I need to commit to this, and so I did. I was like you know, I'm gonna do this process, I'm gonna commit to this process that he gave me and I did just about every single run that it laid out, probably 95% of the runs that it recommended I did, and I even added to it he had given me some books because he'd let me know, as, I mean, you're putting some, some miles in, you need a few good books to listen to. And so it gave me some running books that were there were really stories about running, about Ultra running and things like that.
Speaker 1:But, and listening to these pro runners, that taught me a lot about how to train for running. And it gave me some little micro goals. I started training around heart rate and different things like that that I'd never considered before. But it gave me inside of these daily runs, which were my smaller goals I actually had little goals inside of that to keep my heart rate at a certain pace or a certain heart rate and in order to maintain this training plan, that that seemed like. It felt like a really great idea. So you know, all these little mini goals, my daily runs, my goals inside of those daily runs. I really felt good. It felt great to start knocking these out and I really knew. I knew what needed to be done. I knew that if I just did these things I Would be good and it felt really manageable. And then every single week I started to stack these victories. I would get it done this week and I could feel my confidence rising. I could feel everything just In a good space and about two months out I was prepping, I was doing some gear prep, getting ready, because there's a few things they they make you bring along for safety.
Speaker 1:And so I was reading out all the pricing, different gear and now you can spend a Substantial amount of extra money to cut like six ounces off your your weight for Ex-piece of gear. And it really started to make me think how much extra weight am I carrying around? You know I was not a heavy guy, but I would say I was a little bit muscular. I was like, well, how much extra weight am I carrying around with all this muscle? And so I really decided to factor that in. You know, if it's gonna cost me a Couple hundred bucks to shave a few extra ounces off this piece of gear, how much weight could I cut and and how much would that be worth to me on this mountain.
Speaker 1:So I started looking into what I could do to shave some weight and I decided to quit drinking. And I decided to give up sweets, no chocolate, no alcohol to laugh to the race, which it was funny because the booze I don't normally drink a lot anyway, so the booze wasn't that difficult for me to lay off. But the chocolate, the chocolate in the sweets, that was tough. That's definitely my kryptonite. It was really strangely tough for me to give up chocolate and sweets and really amazing because over the next two months I was actually able to shave down 20 pounds. I was back in my military weight. I was still pretty cut but very, very lean, and two months ago I would have never considered myself a heavy guy. But 20 pounds is substantial. That's a lot of weight to cut, which really made me realize how much extra weight I've been carrying around. I'd been adding up weight, adding up weight and I'd just let it go. I just kind of let it be with me and this was another confidence boost. I had this other big boost of confidence heading in and then, before I knew it.
Speaker 1:Race day was here. Now it's time to start race day, and just to let you know where it starts is the race starts at just right outside of Colorado Springs. It starts at 6,000 foot in elevation and then you climb. You run for 13.1 miles to the top of Pike's Peak, which is over 14,000 foot in elevation, which means you climb for 7,800 feet from the starting line. You go 7,800 feet and then you jog back down to the finish line. And I've done several 14 years. I've even done Pike's Peak before. I did it from the backside, not this route up, but it was brutal. I mean it was brutal.
Speaker 1:It was really a tough thing to do, mainly because at this pace that I wanted to maintain in order to get up to the summit without getting dequeued, there's these checkpoints all along the race, and so you knew, and I knew, that I had to get to the top before a certain time or they wouldn't let you go back down. So if you don't make it, you get cut, and so I had to kind of done a back hazmat of some. What would it look like? What pace do I need? And I had set a game plan of just having a 20 minute mile pace and I knew that if I did a 20 minute mile pace, that would actually get me not only to get up there well before the turnaround time, it would actually give me a respectable time. I'd say that time that would be pretty proud of. And so the entire way up, it was tough.
Speaker 1:Now the last two to three miles of this were brutal, getting all the way up to the summit and for some reason though, right up at the summit, I started to get emotional. I started to get really emotional up at the top. Part of it because I knew that I could fly back down and I made it up at the summit. I'd got to the summit with ample time to be able to get back down with a good time and morale changed and it was go time. I was feeling really good, but that's not where my emotions were.
Speaker 1:Now my emotional state hit me because I was starting to process all of the work that went into being able to summit this with with enough time to be able to complete this race without getting dequeued. And you know I was thinking about all of those 4am wakeups that I had, those long runs, those long solo runs in the cold, in the rain, the crappy weather, eating a salad when I really just wanted that double cheeseburger with bacon, grabbing a water instead of a beer and, more importantly, pushing through all those alarm clock moments when I really just wanted to lay back down in my really warm bed with my beautiful wife and getting up to go run. And it was if all those smaller daily victories that I had laid out over the last six months had hit me in this moment and they multiplied, given me this huge, gigantic boost of not just energy but joy, gave me a ton of joy for life and gratitude for my wife, my family, and that was my take away from this entire race. I've always considered myself to be a very grateful and happy person. I love my wife, I love my kids, and it really hit me right there in this moment that my joy, my happiness, is my responsibility. Now my family didn't change. I changed, and when I changed, when I adjusted, I found a new peak of love and appreciation for them and love for my own life. And this, the same thing, is true for you. You know everything you've ever wanted in your life is right there in your reach. You know, and it's literally sitting right there waiting for you to shift that one thing that you know you need to do in order to make it happen.
Speaker 1:After that, it was smooth sailing. The rest of the race was great. You know, especially, I managed to link up there's this guy that on the way up we had crossed paths several times and we linked up yet again on the way back down and as we got closer to town I heard him coming up on me and I could just hear his footsteps and yell that at me and we just sprinted for the last four miles. We we booked it. All the way down we had a nice solid conversation and it was fantastic. It was just a really, really great race and in no way did I compete with my age group or the other beast that did this, but I did complete it. Yeah, I set a goal years ago and it was done. I was on cloud nine. I was feeling Great. It took a lot, though. It took a really it took a long time for me to process it.
Speaker 1:All week I've been thinking about everything that went into it, really trying to soak it in, and I've been filled with a lot of pride and a ton of gratitude. It really hit me hard this week and during the race, like I had mentioned, is just how much my wife, how much I love her, how much she supports me, how much she supports me, and then this journey that I had and it really made me feel loved, you know, knowing that she's always got my back, she's always there for me, and things that I all I know. I really feel it and these moments and my overall happiness has just skyrocketed. Any anxiety that I had Feel like that's gone. And and yes, there would be Something to be said for the fact that my watch has registered me going up. It says I went up 780 flights of stairs and burned 6000 calories over that 7.5 hours.
Speaker 1:So I get that that would be a factor inside of it, but I really think it's a bigger piece of setting a goal, working towards that goal and completing that task at hand. You know, and and that's a lot of what we talk about on this show is is the power of goals, the power of daily goal setting, and how much it Impacts your life. You know all of this and this entire conversation. Maybe think about Jerry Jeremy Dotson's interview, where he talks about the 20 meter scan and the five meter study. Basically, what it says is you set the goal that you want to accomplish that's the far out goal and then you set the daily task up that you need to do in order to get there and what it's easy to do. That's so error. Sorry. Easy to talk about, not so easy to do, which is that's why most people Don't do it. That's why most people don't do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we all talk about the big goals. Easy to say I want this big thing, I want this, and it's sitting out there and we talk about it. We say we want it, but I don't think you do. I don't think you really do.
Speaker 1:I know for me in this moment of time, reflecting back to when I didn't qualify for this marathon, I can say I don't think I really wanted it because I wasn't ready to put the work in. I didn't lay out the task that need to Be done, and so I know that that's how it showed up for me. In fact, even on the second time, I didn't even know what I didn't know within it and fortunately, I had a buddy that stepped in. Had a buddy that stepped in is a hate that. This is. This is your daily plan. This is what you need to be doing every single day in order to train up and complete this marathon and that's my message inside of this is what's that big thing that you say you want? What is it? And then, what are the tasks at hand that you need to lay out in order to make it happen? And if you don't know, if you don't have the daily tasks at hand, who's out there? And that's the essence of this.
Speaker 1:If you're listening to this right now, that is literally what we're talking about here is finding somebody that you can look to, a mentor that can help you on this path. Finding somebody that's been where you want to go, somebody that's climbed this mountain that you want to climb, and just ask them. I promise you they will be more than happy to share with you the things that they did in order to get there. But it's up to you. It's on you if you say you want it, if you really truly want it, you need to figure out the pathway in order to make it happen, and so it's on you. It's on you to make this happen. It's on you to get these things that you want in your life, to lay them out there and to accomplish it Until next time.