Today I ran in the NYC Gridiron 4-Mile run, something that I have also done in 2013 and 2014, and really enjoy doing. I have also run in the Central Park New Year’s Eve run, which is also great fun, and has been a fantastic way to start off the New Year. I only run in these two races each year, and instead take long walks – every Sunday taking a 2 ½ hour 8-mile walk.

It was in law school when I first started running as sport, and before then, running was just a training tool for the sports I played competitively – tennis, soccer, basketball, and baseball. Running distances started innocently enough, with me taking 1 mile runs near my apartment, but eventually grew to unofficially running 18.6 miles of the New York City Marathon my first year in law school, and then officially running and completing the Marathon my second year. How that happened is a great story onto itself (for another time), but the result of all that running, and training, was knee injuries, and the cessation of running due to injury. When I stopped running I quickly gained weight, and that weight stayed with me until the last few years.

To avoid a recurrence of leg injuries, I do not run anymore (except those two short runs), and instead prefer to walk briskally – walk everywhere in Manhattan (avoiding public transit and cabs), and take my aforementioned Sunday walk. Moreover, my daily exercise is on a indoor recumbent bike, and on an elliptical machine – both low-impact activities which minimize the possibility of leg injuries. That is one of the reasons I prefer those two pieces of equipment over a treadmill.

Yet on those two occasions a year, I enjoy the challenge of again running over a distance, which brings me to today’s run, and how I was struggling to keep running, instead of just walking. But what kept me running was the thought that if I just persevered long enough, I would overcome my difficulties running, as well as my doubt about whether I could run the entire race. Being able to persevere is an important element in finding and maintaining one’s inner drive, and it has applications to all parts of one’s life, not just with regard to physical fitness.

No matter whom you are, or what you are doing, at some point you will have doubts about what you are doing, and whether you will accomplish a goal. For me, I have never been the smartest, nor the best athlete, but where I am strongest is my ability to stick it out and work to improve myself. And there are also tricks that have gotten me though those periods, like today, when I kept focusing on just taking one step at a time, and that I should keep running to the end of a song that I was listening to on my iPhone. I also thought about how elevated I would feel if I was able to accomplish my goal of running the entire race.

During my daily morning exercise, I am not always in the best physical or mental condition to exercise for an hour, so I find distractions – watching something on TV, listening to a particular song, reading e-mails, etc., just trying to find something to get me a few minutes more on the bike. Those minutes add up, and eventually, you can accomplish your goal, like I did today in running the entire race.

So this week’s message is when those situations occur, and you have doubt about being able to accomplish a goal, focus on something that will get you doing the activity for just a few minutes more, and eventually, you will be able to accomplish your goal. For longer term goals, just focus on doing a small part, and eventually, all those small parts will add up to accomplishing your goal.