UNLIMITED

LIMITED?

What is it that stops most people?  THE START!

It's not the action of "going"....it's the THOUGHT of the action to get going.

Our ability to accomplish is usually won or lost in our head...in our reasoning..or better said, in our ability to "reason away" the action we need to do to get going.

Over this past weekend, on May 6th, 3 men...WORLD CLASS, ELITE runners set out to break the 2:00:00 barrier of running a marathon, 26.2 miles.  Nike had the "Breaking 2 Project" strategy in place for the past couple of years and Eliud Kipchoge, Zersenay Tadese, and Lelisa Desisa set out to see if it could be done.  Nike called this their "MOONSHOT!" (see March 9 BEST YEAR YET post, "MOONSHOT" for more information)

This run (it was an unsanctioned "race" on a controlled formula one auto race track in Italy with other runners/pacers to help) was 63 years to the day that Sir Roger Bannister did something that people...experts...doctors...scientists...said could NEVER be done.  He broke the 4 minute mile and World Record, coming in at 3:59:4.  Before he DID it, "THEY" said the human body could not run that fast.  That the lungs might explode with all the stress put on them.

Although the Nike "Breaking 2 Project" didn't succeed (Kipchoge came in at 2:00:25), it showed what was possible (the marathon world record is 2:02:57 set in 2014 by Dennis Kimetto of Kenya at the Berlin Marathon).  

I have said, even with my marathon running, that the route; time of start; weather conditions; what one eats the night before...the week before; fueling during the race; the competition; all of these are factors to how you will perform, and all races are different.  Will the sub-2 hour marathon be broken?  I believe it will....and here's why:

(DISCLAIMER: I am not a scientist; doctor; race coach; elite runner; etc.)  I believe that it will be broken because Kipchoge got within :25 seconds of the 2 hour mark.  As I mentioned above, the world record is 2:02:57 and to shave off nearly 3 minutes, at that level is MONUMENTAL.  AND....Kipchoge proved that it was within the realm of possibility now.

Which brings us back to Sir Roger Bannister and the 4 minute mile in 1954.  A month after Bannister broke this barrier, an Australian by the name of John Landy ran a 3:57:9.  By the close of the decade, another 20 people broke the 4 minute mile barrier.  It took one person to get there, and once that LIMITED belief barrier was lifted, it became UNLIMITED..if you believed.

I realize that our goals and aspirations DO take believing in our abilities to see it happen, but they also take the START and other controllable actions to see the goal realized.  YOUR potential is UNLIMITED in this BEST YEAR YET that you are living.

Don't think small and hit your target every time.  Think BIG...go for the HIGH HANGING FRUIT.  Stretch yourself for your goals.  WHAT is that one thing that you really want?

• Make a plan
• Implement the steps
• Track your progress
• make adjustments when necessary
• DON'T STOP UNTIL YOU ARE THERE!

Do you think Nike, Kipchoge, or the Elite running community at large, are going to stop in their pursuit of the sub-2 hour marathon?  NOPE!  The actions of this past weekend are only going to speed up the process, because some kid in high school or college right now is reading this and making out their goals to be the first.

What do you want?  GO.GET.IT!

YOU.ARE.UNLIMITED!