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Catherine Gacad

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Superhuman No More

For many years, I’ve extolled the concept of mind over matter. If you believe, it will happen. If you think, it will be. I’ve staked my running career on it. There isn’t a single race that I trained consistently for. I got bored, lazy, and [insert your adjective for lack of discipline here]. Come race days, I prayed I wouldn’t be the one to keel over on the side of the road and head to the finish line by way of ambulance. Fortunately, God heed my prayers and threw in quite a bit of endurance for good measure, because I always finished in surprisingly good time–especially for someone who hadn’t adequately prepared.

Today I surmised that God must have found favor with another neglectful runner. Unlike the Little Engine That Could, I very much could not! No matter how much I willed myself to press on, the gears would not go. I coughed, I clutched. I rubbed the nose dribble away. I swiped the rain drizzle from my forehead. Begone, oh thoughts of fatigue. It didn’t help that the last kilometer of the raise was straight up a hill. It didn’t help that everyone puttered to a bitter uphill stop. Eeeek, haaaa, eeeek, haaaa. For this morning’s race on a rainy gloomy day, I sucked air and hacked it out, drowning in personal disappointment.

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03.26.11

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Welcome to my site, derived from an advice column I wrote while getting my MBA. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. I give helpful, opinionated advice based on my own experience and from the expertise of my extensive network. For more, click here.

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