This morning at the Lone Gull 10K in Gloucester, MA, I ran the first road race of my post-collegiate career. It also happened to be my first road 10K ever. That by itself seems like a daunting task even to me and I've always been a distance runner. So at 8am this morning, when the offer was put on the table for me to race an hour later at 9am, there should have been some sirens and alarms going off in my head telling me that I'm crazy, I'm a miler and I'm neither in shape nor mentally prepared for this. However, something in me thought, "this might be a great challenge. What's the worst that could happen?"

Since I was setting up the Mobile Van with Pat, I ended up only getting in a 3 minute warmup to the starting line followed by 2 strides out from the line and back before the gun went off. Pretty ideal routine, I know. In the end I ended up running 33:44 for 10K and got 9th overall. It wasn't a personal best, but given what my training has been over the last several weeks and even the last several months, I'm pretty satisfied.

It just goes to show how you don't need to have everything go just right in order to have a good performance that you can be be proud of at the end of the day. As long as you give it all regardless of sickness, aches (disclaimer: I don't advise running through injuries), and girlfriend/boyfriend drama, you should come out feeling as though you didn't waste a good opportunity to perform at your best that day.

So get out there and challenge yourself to something you never thought you could do. Blast a hill, explore a new trail, push on for another mile. You just might surprise yourself and get a little better in the process. After all, "Fortune Favors the Bold".

- Jared