Persistence and the Payoff

One of my very favorite quotes is from Calvin Coolidge who said...

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”

Time and again this quote has proven to be so true in my career and personal life. So it is no surprise that last weekend persistence paid off, yet again, in the Hume family. Shari, my beautiful, intelligent and always running (literally) wife, was racing in yet another marathon. It was the Chicago Marathon and she was running for Team Cure JM. This was the second time she ran Chicago for the Cure JM Foundation and it was her 10th marathon to date. Count them, 10! Several years ago (probably around her 4th marathon), Shari decided if she was going to inflict this much pain on her body anyway, then she would try to qualify for the Boston Marathon. For the non-marathoners reading this, the Boston Marathon is the Holy Grail of marathons because to qualify for Boston you have to not only run marathons, but you have to run them FAST. The qualifying times are very challenging and for Shari they were alway elusive. One year, she ran 3 marathons trying to hit the qualifying time needed. In one of those marathons, she missed qualifying for Boston by only 5 minutes! Heartbreaking for all of us, but especially Shari. So at Chicago last weekend she went in as a dark horse; no one expected her to have a good race. She just ran a marathon in January (the Carlsbad Marathon for Cure JM) and spent much of the summer nursing injuries. The longest training run she did for Chicago was 10 miles. So while her body was not up for the task of running the Chicago Marathon, Shari was secretly putting her mind in gear to qualify for Boston. When a doubt arose in her mind that she did not train enough, she squashed the doubt by telling herself “yeah, so by not practicing long training runs, my body has less injuries and more strength.” She also thought of all of the children battling juvenile dermatomyositis and the marathons they battle everyday just leading normal lives.

Through shear mental fortitude and the experience of her 9 previous “training marathons,” Shari crossed the finish line with a whole three minutes to spare toward her Boston Marathon qualifying time. Impressively, Shari finished in the top 25% of the 45,000 runners registered for the Chicago Marathon. Over her past 15 years of marathon running, Shari never took her eyes off the prize and last weekend, she reached this monumental goal. Now she is already talking about her next big goal.

My three boys are very proud their Mom qualifyied for Boston. Equally, I am very proud of her qualifying time, but I’m even more proud of the example she sets for her sons to pursue your dreams and never give up.

Never, never, never give up. - Winston Churchill