Once I asked a friend how he got through races. In his 50s then and still running speedy 5Ks and impressive half marathons, he said that when he hit a bad patch, he'd remember that he had been expecting it. He would feel bad for a while, but then, he told himself he knew he'd feel good again. 'You'll feel good again,' I sometimes tell myself when I want to quit.

When I get to the part in the race where it starts to feel hard, when I want to give up, I talk to myself. It goes like this: 'Who are you trying to impress?' Or, more precisely, 'Who are you afraid of disappointing?' Maybe there are people who are truly self-motivated, who don't need attention and praise. That's noble. I am made of weaker stuff. I care what others think about me; I care about how I will tell the story when I have to say, out loud, how things went. For me, shame is a useful motivator. I like to trumpet my successes because it helps me to hear not that I'm better than people think I am, but better than I believe I am. At some point, you make a choice. At some point, you stop having the conversation. You make a decision. You take action. You just do it, or you don't. 'Who will I disappoint?' Of course, when I start hearing that nagging question, I know that the only answer that matters is: me.