That's what running does to lives. It's not just exercise. It's not just achievement. It's a daily discipline that has nothing to do with speed, weight, social status, sexual orientation, political affiliation, where you live, what car you drive, or whether anyone anywhere loves you. It's about the slow and painful process of being the best you can be. That's why the first step out the door is always so hard. That's when we choose between settling for average and being a superhero version of ourselves.

Excuses always lead to a reckoning. We find reasons not to take that first step out the door, just as we find ways to be - or not to be - our best. Weakness, doubt, and fear are parts of the human condition. Facing them instead of fabricating an elaborate ruse to sidestep them - hoping to avoid them but ultimately carrying them in our hearts and mind and psyche until they whittle away at our being - give us a direct route to hope and dreams. Along the way, we reap all those other by-products that make suffering a tonic for our souls.

That's what running does to lives. It's not just exercise. It's not just achievement. It's a daily discipline that has nothing to do with speed, weight, social status, sexual orientation, political affiliation, where you live, what car you drive, or whether anyone anywhere loves you. It's about the slow and painful process of being the best you can be. That's why the first step out the door is always so hard. That's when we choose between settling for average and being a superhero version of ourselves.

All runners announce their entry into the sport with the most basic athletic action: a step. A simple foot plant that leads to thousands upon millions more: some faster, some slower; at home and around the world; in sun, blizzard and driving rain; on pavement, dirt, mud, gravel, sand, loam, grass, oval all-weather tracks with eight lanes that measure exactly 400 meters around, and freshly scrubbed Pamplona cobblestones. A splendid step, a quiet step, a lonely step; born of some inner dialogue, some longing to be different, to be – not the best – but at least better. The step takes less than a second. Doubts are silenced in that whisper of time. Lives are changed…

Running has taken me on adventures great and small, at home and around the world. It has provided me with hope and perseverance on days when I had none – and even, once every great while, warmed me with that fleeting ray of sunshine known as glory. Running has taught me that I can do anything, just so long as I keep putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes that notion is metaphorical and sometimes not. In this way, I have been inspired to attempt things I would have never dreamed possible.

And it all started with a single step.