Confidence

“The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure”. 

This Cross Country season has possibly been one of the most eye opening experience of my life. As the days dwindle down to Vancouver, I feel like I'm a completely new person. Back in High School or even six months ago, if you were to ask me what it takes to run these times, like any other person, I would say "run a lot of miles, eat healthy, and train hard". Though this is still very important, I believe a big part of my success as a runner this season has to be my confidence. Going into workouts or races telling myself that I belong up in the front. Simply going out there and doing it has put me to where I am now. All these miles i've put in, and hard interval sessions that never seem to end, but truly understand and knowing that I want this more then the person running next to me has given me that huge leap forward.

My confidence has really picked up this past month. Running interval workouts at Early Thomas Conely Park on crisp early fall afternoons. I can remember a particular workout that was only a couple weeks ago on October 15th. It was 4x2k at the course. Going into the workout I've been running good times and thought "Hey, I can run with Michael Owen" and that whole Mind over matter thing really worked out well for me. I stopped really considering pace, or where I was on the team I simply just ran. Once I had totally overtaken my mind, everything else came to me.

I'm starting to understand that there's more to running hard then just training hard. You must believe in yourself and over power and negative thoughts that creep into your mind. Believe is almost an understatement you must fully and truly KNOW what your doing out there. I guess you could say this is the basic layout, in my opinion, to the whole "Running Free" thing. I run my best when my head is cleared of any splits or times, and I just go out there with a hard mindset to just compete. The hardest part leading up to a race is convincing yourself you can do it and turn your over-thinking brain off. Once you've accomplished that, everything else simply falls into your hands... or your feet.

-BJW

Ive grown tired of holding this pose
I feel more like a stranger each time I come home
So Im making a deal with the devils of fame
Saying let me walk away, please
Youll be free child once you have died
From the shackles of language and measurable time
And then we can trade places, play musical graves
Till then walk away, walk away