This semester has been absolutely draining, and I truly do appreciate your patience here.
Years ago, when I started running, I thought I was going to die the first day, having only managed a half-mile, if that. Then a mile became possible, and in a few months, 5 miles was doable. What I found was what was exhausting early in my career became much more manageable as I journeyed on. Fortunately, life has those surprises.
Thank you for the words, they do mean a lot. I'm optimistic that things will gather pace.
To Richard on 2/28/24:
Now, one truth about running faster, and I think I may have used this story about myself when I first was learning how to jog. This is going back 30 years, and when I ran the first quarter mile around the community where I lived, I thought I was going to die. I was out of breath, I was sweating, my feet hurt. And then a week later, I was doing a half mile, and then two weeks later, I was doing a mile, and then I was doing 5 miles, and then in a month and a half, I think I was doing 10 miles.
And so one of the things I realized is that sometimes if you need to give people more rest, that's a temporary thing, because they can run further the next time. And so when pushing people, you may have to ease up in the beginning, but as they're gaining more strength as a team and gaining more strength as a contributor, you can push harder the next time. The amount that you can push your team or encourage your team to run faster is not constant. It evolves.
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