Everything you want is ahead of you

Have you heard of Kathrine Switzer? She’s the 70-year-old badass who was the very first woman to wear an official number in the Boston Marathon. At that time, no one believed a woman could run the full 26.2 miles, citing reasons like running ruins a woman’s reproductive organs (hard to believe this was 1967, not 1767!) Race officials didn’t realize they had let a woman into the race until a few miles in. The race director famously chased after her while trying to pull off her number and screaming “Get out of my race!” Kathrine proved him and all of the other naysayers wrong. She’s paved the way for running standouts like Grete Waitz and Joanie Benoit Samuelson (both of whom I idolized when I was a high-school runner) and every woman who runs.

Every year I watch the NYC Marathon. I’ve been a runner of varying commitment and success throughout my life, and the marathon has been a constant presence. I actually scored entry to it the year I was going through chemo. My drug-addled brain decided it would be nothing to add “marathon training” to my to-do list; my body had a much different plan and I’ve never run the race. But I watch it every single year.

In the 2017 NYC Marathon, Kathrine ran for the first time since winning it forty years ago. During the recent race, one of the commentators said something that made me drop everything to write it down. Watching Kathrine tick off mile after mile, he said: “She hasn’t looked over her shoulder once and why should she? Everything she wants is ahead of her.”

Whoa.

Everything she wants is ahead of her.  

I feel the power of that statement in my gut. The simple example of someone running forward to everything she wants absolutely clarifies for me how useless it is to get hung up on what’s already behind me. I can learn from it, but if I keep turning around to see what’s in the past, I’ll trip myself up and probably never reach my finish line.

Everything she wants is ahead of her.

The same is true for you. Enjoy that thought.