Last year I underwent a life transforming journey. After finishing a disappointing 4th place at the 2009 ING New York City Marathon I knew that something in my heart had to change. I wasn’t tired from the intense 100-plus miles a week of training I was logging in my preparation, I was tired of being disappointed. I had the privilege of having some really great days in my running career like when I won the US Olympic Marathon Trials and when I set the America Record in the half marathon, but as I’ve found in my career, those days don’t happen every day. No matter how hard I trained and however much discipline and focus I mustered, I couldn’t ensure these great days would happen on race day. Only one person can win, and if my happiness is contingent on winning, I realized that was setting me up for disappointment and unhappiness.
In the winter of 2010, as I trained for my second running of the Boston Marathon (I was third the previous year) something shifted in my spirit that lead me to experience what I have always been going after, even if I didn’t realize it at the time: joy. I came in 4th, the same place as the New York City marathon, but I experienced joy as if I had won the race. Since then, I have learned to have joy in each run and race, knowing that it is possible to live each day with joy despite my circumstances. This has not resulted in complacency, I am still training hard for the win, but I know now that my joy is not determined by the race outcome.
My hope is that “Running with Joy” will not only be a helpful training tool to you as you get to see exactly how I physically prepared for the 2010 Boston Marathon, but more so that it would release a freedom in your spirit to experience joy on a daily basis no matter what is going on around you.
6 Comments
Awesome Ryan! I can’t wait to read the book. You are such an inspiration. Thank you!
Can’t wait for the book!
This book is already my ‘next-book-to-read’, better I know than Born to Run and The Ultramarathon Man since you are including the author of all our desires and achievements within your first writing: In God we Trust.
And your accomplishments are a real testimony to your heart being in the right place, I cannot wait to hear/read your travels and preparations for Boston 2010 and other journeys in your life.
May God bless all of the Steps Foundation runners with great successes and the Hall’s with peace in every moment of your lives. Thanks, Ryan, for everything you do for others everywhere!!!
Nice Ryan! You’re definately on the right track. Excited to read the book and can’t wait for Patriots’ Day… Mike
Ryan, I can’t wait to read the book. I’m a big fan of yours, and like you, I look for “joy” in everything I do through God.
Thank you for being available for the work of God. After a bumpy year of injury after injury I was open to hearing how to run with God instead of my desires/disappointments when I stumbled across these excerpts from your book. I just got back from the store where I ordered a copy of “Running with Joy” and am looking forward hearing about the journey. Praise God!