This is a part of the series of posts that tie back to the 11 Life Lessons I Learned From Running.

In the last post in this series, I stated that Sometimes You Need a Break. This is not always true.

The major hill on my route stumped me when I first started running. I couldn’t seem to make it up the whole thing without walking. It didn’t matter if I walked to the foot of it to rest, ran to the foot of it for a running start, or any other approach I could think of.

As I continued training, I managed to get a little closer each time. Finally, I pushed through the desire to walk and made it up the hill. Talk about excited! (And in need of a break!) I knew that I could make it, and just had to push myself to get there.

Like running, it’s easy to stop or walk when the going gets hard. Sure, you’ll still get there eventually, but you’ll lose valuable time. Without pushing yourself you may not improve and it will always be hard. Later on, as you have built up the endurance, you’ll be surprised at what you can accomplish with ease.

That hill won’t be easy for me for some time yet, but psychologically I have triumphed and that is the edge I needed to really improve my running.