“It’s all mental!” Damn, I hate that phrase. Running ultra-marathons, running a single mile is not “all mental.”

I’m a New Year Resolution person. Or rather I’m a big supporter of other folks’ resolutions. And I’ve traditionally even set them myself – or some variation. Historically, I’m running about a 50/50 success rate. Hey it’s a great baseball stat. 

Or better yet, don’t even start.

Balance - the pinnacle, ever elusive, key to a happy, healthy life. We read about work-life balance. We joke about sprinkling cupcakes in between our daily salads. We treat balance like it’s this place we can get to, a space in which we are structured but flexible, productive yet restored, in sustainable perpetuity.

I’m a multi-tasker. Or at least I try to be. If I’m walking, I’m on the phone or listening to a podcast. If I’m cooking, I’m catching up on my course lectures. If I’m running - well I’m writing or “reading” an audiobook. I’ll squeeze a quick email in between intervals or pile errands on to the end of a long run. Why do one thing when I can do two? Three birds with one stone? I’m there for it.

We used to joke in the Marine Corps about those last two months of the year - no man’s land on the calendar. Between the Marine Corps birthday and New Years we had Veteran’s Day, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and Christmas. Now in Canada we add in Boxing Day and it’s an essential eight weeks of long weekends with some “work” days interspersed throughout.

I gave a speech a couple weeks ago about my transcon run, which ended five years ago today. Someone asked the biggest thing I got out of the run. I didn’t have a quick answer then, and after thinking about it for days, I still don’t. In reality, I suspect I won’t ever have a clean answer – because that run was not clean.

“The only run you ever regret is the one you didn’t do.” We hear this phrase a lot in running, and it’s perhaps true, or as true as any generalization about running can be. I’ve certainly regretted more skipped runs than completed ones.

During my run across Mississippi, I stopped at the Meridian Freedom Project. They were my community/cause for Mississippi and had not only hosted us but invited us to tour their facility to see how they were building the next generation of our nation’s leaders. In one room, the young girls had written lists on giant poster boards of things they needed to be “queens'' of their own lives. Black and white to-do/be/acquire lists for their future selves. Of the six lists I glanced over, five had the same theme - the ability to control their lives.

I’ve been working for as long as I can remember. When I was young it was walking beans, detasseling corn, or mowing yards. As a teenager I worked in restaurants and bars (that’s a whole other story I guess). In fact, for about a month each summer I’d clocked nearly 90 hours a week. My first big fight with my mom in college? It was over getting a job during the first week of the semester - she thought I should focus on my studies.

When’s the last time you played? Like really played – not out of obligation or as part of a plan to achieve some goal – but just played, for the joy of it?

“Do you ever sleep?” “8 hours each night,” I responded. My coworker looked amazed. She had just learned about my transcontinental run and was giving me a compliment. We joked a little about how sleep deprivation had become a badge of honor for so many – how sometimes folks tend to try and outdo each other with under-rest. The logic stands – the less you rest, the more you work, and the more you work the more impressive and important you must be.