Learning to run uphill

I guess most of our stories relate to our experiences and it's good to reflect on our past, in order to take lessons learned into tomorrow. Everybody has thought about this at some time or another, but I do wonder how many people take experiences in one area and apply the lessons learned to another, completely different area. I suspect this is where humans differ from other creatures. The lesson for me today is recalling something I learned while training for the Comrades marathon so many, many years ago.

Today I was lamenting on how tough it is to learn new stuff and to constantly feel like you know so little and there is so much to know and learn. It can be overwhelming. If I said you needed to go out tomorrow and run 90km, you too might feel overwhelmed; but not if you trained every day, a little at a time. At day 10 of your training, you would, I'm certain, still feel daunted; but you're only in day 10!

So my approach when I was training was to work on my hills. My theory was simple:

take on the most difficult stuff, that way the easy stuff becomes a breeze

I went out, sought out hills and while running them (and dying in the process), I talked to myself over and over again, telling myself that I loved hills and was actually a strong hill runner.

Now you can believe that initially that was simply a lie. I found them tough and it was agonising. Doing this over and over again though, I slowly became stronger than the rest of the group on the hills. I would lead the pack up the hill and come back to fetch the stragglers. I continued to run them hard. I continued to tell myself that this was my strength. As the races came and went, I would finish much stronger than before. I had learned to run hills. Now downhills and flats were a breeze...almost like doing nothing at all!

And this is the lesson I recalled today as I struggled though trying to teach myself some new technology, frustrated that I know so little and seem to make so little progress daily. I'm doing the hills today, and tomorrow, and forever. It's what I love doing. It makes everything else a breeze, and most of all

I want to be the guy who does the hard stuff because it's what I'm good at

Learn to run uphill today.