I recently went for a jog for the first time in awhile and I had a peculiar thought: I wonder how fast I could run a mile?

To some extent, it was stupid considering that I’ve had close to zero dedicated cardio training for the past year or so and I haven’t run consistently since high school. But given my competitive nature, it left me with just enough of an itch that I had to go for it.

So the following day, late at night after the roads had all but cleared and the swampy air from the sweltering heat wave had begun to thin, I decided to test myself.

I designed a course in my neighborhood that was exactly a mile long, and made my way to the starting line.

As I prepared to run, I was surprised by just how nervous I felt.

I was literally all alone. I wasn’t competing against anyone, no one other than my wife even knew that I was running, and there was almost no chance that I would run into anyone I knew.

So there was no logical reason to worry about how my time would end up.

Furthermore, I had every excuse possible for why I wouldn’t run well (lack of training, dark night, hot day, running an hour after having an ice cream cone, etc.).

Yet I felt a knot in my stomach that rivaled the feeling before my biggest track meets in high school.

Nerves aside, I finally gathered myself and took off, phone in hand acting as a timer.

I ended up running the first 400m far faster than I should have, and I died down the stretch. It hurt, but I finished and actually ended up surprising myself with my time.

But the thing that stuck with me most was the anxiety I had gone through before the run.

I couldn’t stop thinking of those moments, and ultimately I came up with three explanations:

1. Part of the pre-race anxiety was probably due to my adrenaline kicking in to prepare me for the race
2. More of the anxiety was likely due to my fear of the pain that I would experience during the run
3. And the majority of the anxiety came from fear of failure

Number 1 is a good thing. I’m sure a bit of adrenaline helped me while I ran.

But numbers 2 and 3 are a bit more unsettling.

Reflecting back on the time leading up to the run, I almost bailed because of those two points. I was so afraid of the pain that I would feel and the risk of being disappointed by the time on the clock at the end that I almost didn’t compete in the first place.

Which would have been a shame because, looking back, I’m grateful that I pulled myself together and did the run.

So the next logical question becomes, how many things do we miss out on because of fear of pain and fear of failure?

How often are we afraid to challenge ourselves?

This isn’t just a physical thing either.

Whenever we put ourselves out there and make an effort, we subject ourselves to the hard work that it will take to give it our best, and we risk failing. Neither of these are easy to overcome.

Just taking this blog as an example, these types of thoughts swirled through my head as I started, and then restarted this blog.

I worried about the effort it would take to regularly produce articles that I could be proud of, and I thought of the judgment and exposure that comes with sharing these articles through an email list and on social media.

But that’s certainly not a good reason to keep from lacing up and trying.

-Brandon