“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

—Theodore Roosevelt, 1910

This excerpt reminds me (as all things do) of running. More specifically, it reminds me of the line where I started my first 50 mile run. I didn’t know if I could split an 8-minute mile like I had planned. I didn’t know if I could run the entire thing. Hell, I didn’t even know if I could put one foot in front of the other that many times in one day. But I had to try.

Running is my arena, and probably yours too. It is where we go to struggle, to win, to fail, to dare greatly.