John Gallagher

Anyone who knows me knows that I am not a runner.  For as long as I can remember, I would scoff at the idea of running any distance at all.  In fact, I found myself saying often, “I will never run a 5K.”  What’s the point?

Well, recently, I completed my first 5K and learned a lot about myself in the process.  Why did I decide to run a 5K?  Many reasons, including the following:

1)      I am overweight – My current exercise/nutrition was resulting in slow progress to achieving my desired target state

2)      I was not a good example to my kids with regards to their fitness – Do as I say…not as I do!

3)      I needed a ‘target’ – My workouts were not intentional.  I found myself going to the gym without a purpose, and, as a result, not seeing improvement.

4)      I needed a ‘process’ – There are many great resources out there and the one I found was www.c25k.com.  Many thanks to Dan Foster for this suggestion.  This gave me standard work to be ready for my first 5K in 9 weeks.

5)      I had people in my life inspiring me to do ‘more’ (I will write more about them in a future post.)

1. Adam Ward
2. Dan Foster
3. Stan Buck
4. My family – Chris, Brendan and Joseph ( my mom, too, who just had her knee replaced!)

I will write more about them in a future post.

Well, I completed my first (note I say first) 5K in 32:09.  Not fast, but the key word for me is “completed”.  What’s next?  Another 5K in late August.  Shooting for a 5% reduction in time.  After that?  Who knows?  I do spend a lot of time in Boston, now…

So, what do you NEED to do that you have said “I will NEVER do that.”?

No related posts.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011 at 9:58 pm and is filed under Discipline, Leadership metaphors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.