Living in Ottawa does make running challenging due to the cold weather and constant snow on the ground. The Marathon date I was aiming for was May 30th. The only problem was that it was March and I hadn’t really started preparing. In order to run 42km straight, you need to do quite a bit of training. I forget the exact date, but I promised myself that I had to start practicing and I had to run 10km to kick things off. The problem was that it was 8:20pm and I was still at the office. I had made plans with Friends to meet them for a movie at 10pm and so time was running short. I rushed out of the office at 8:20pm as I knew that the run would take me about an hour and I needed some time to get home, change, run, shower, get dressed and head to the movie in time. Being in a rush, I somehow ended up running a red light. I noticed the flash of the camera and well, it was quite disheartening.

When I got home, I looked up the red-light-camera online and I realized that it was going to mean a $325 fine. Ouch. I hadn’t had anything to eat since noon and so I grabbed a bite to eat and oh did the fatigue start to set in. The fine I just got didn’t help either. I was in a really horrible mood. It looked like I wasn’t going to be able to do it. At that point in time, I thought to myself that if I don’t go for the run, I would loose. It would be City-of-Ottawa:1 Aydin:0. The thought of that got me to go out for the run and push myself to finish in under and hour and make the movie on time.

It sounds silly, I know – but the thought of beating the City was what motivated me to practice and keep pushing myself to finish that run, continue to practice for the next weeks to come in order to finish the Marathon.

While there’ll be more to come in future posts about how I managed to finish the Marathon and tips and tricks, the most important part of the whole adventure was working up the motivation. Most battles are won in your head before they actually take place. That night, in my mind, I had already won. It’s a big lesson to learn. It doesn’t really matter what your reason is. As long as your reason is strong enough for you, there’s no stopping.

Cheers,
Aydin.

Everyone knows that in a startup there are no excuses to be made. When something needs to be done, someone needs to do it, and it needs to be done ASAP. Saying things like, “I’ve never done it before.” and “can I work on something else?” don’t cut it. Inevitably, you’ll be faced with a task that you won’t love doing. When that time comes, rather than asking yourself “why do I have to do this?”, try asking yourself “how can I do this most efficiently and enjoy the process?”. That’s a much better question and it’ll get you a much better answer.