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“The road to success is always under construction”
Lily Tomlin

As I continue down the path to the final countdown before another Marathon season, the quote above has a lot of meaning to me.

I do not know nay individuals within my circle that accomplish what they set out to do without first designing and building their infrastructure to achieve success.

Working long hours to build a career, putting time and energy into a relationship to make it a solid foundation or even setting goals and honing the body through countless hours of training to achieve a personal goal.

We are always under construction and when we are not, we break down and fail. To take for granted the very fabric of our being will almost always lead to our destruction.
I have seen the circle of friends in my life achieve sports greatness over the last year. From my wife, Sarah, Ann Marie, Bob, Jay and my sister, Tracey, focus and build their endurance to capture the ultimate goal of qualifying for Boston. Then to see Sarah 5 months later guarantee herself a spot in the Half Iron Distance National Championships. I have witnessed a husband and wife team in Sami and Carmen reach the podium on almost every triathlon race they participated in this year.

The list is endless of personal achievements among great people in the circles I travel in.
In order for me to wallow in the mist of these great people I must too always think that I am under construction. Building, strengthening, developing and pursuing the best that I can be not only in my athlete abilities but also as a human being on this Earth.

We all can construct ourselves for greatness in a specific sport, but the true great ones do it in life.

Monday evening I played email tag with Ann Marie. She was looking to establish a time to run in the morning before swim. Facebook was acting up and not sending messages and by the time, I got her responses I was sound asleep. Next time we “talk” on the phone then we both would not have ran solo this morning.

4:40AM Ann Marie was knocking out her run while I was still asleep. By 5AM I was up and heading out the door. A 5-mile run was on the bill for this morning. I hit the gym, got ready and made a bee line for the door. The humidity was high. I was sweating driving over to the gym (yes, no A/C). I wanted to get out and back before the sun added more heat and stickiness to the day.

The run was again a struggle. The first couple steps were as if I had ski boots tightened up. The ankles were stiff, the Achilles’ screamed a little for being disturbed and the legs felt wobbly from a strength conditioning workout yesterday.

I have to start somewhere, I thought, and what better place then right here and now.
The first mile was awkward. I was swaying all over the road to warm up the muscles and tendons. By the time I hit WW I was feeling better. I set myself in “cruise” mode and set the sights on HWY 9 around 2 miles up the road.

The traffic was light this morning, as I was not beamed in the eyes by early morning commuters on their way to brave 400.

Turning left on HWY 9 and heading to Henderson PKWY I felt good. I held back thinking at Henderson I would open it up a little and push myself. Henderson came; I turned left and increased the pace. The rollers felt good as I was able to increase and decrease cadence as I made my way down to Cumming St. Still pushing the envelope I turned onto Cumming kicked it bit more and cruised onto Westside PKWY. Westside was easy since it is downhill. I focused on form, gait and pace while I made it to Academy. Turned left on Academy and pushing just a bit more until I hit the traffic light at Morris. From Morris back to LTF I slowed and again focused on form.

The pace was unknown, the time was unknown. The only thing that was known was it was humid and it was a 5 mile run.

When you build or construct there is always a plan, but sometimes you need to use your instincts and just go with what is right. This morning it was just about the run and nothing else. I will always be under construction.