Luxury Real Estate

By Robert Lockard

I’m going to talk about something a little off-topic from my usual discussion of luxury real estate, but which I find compelling and interesting.

On Saturday, May 10, 2008, I ran my first half-marathon at the 2nd Annual Tacoma City Half-Marathon. That was 13.1 miles of pain and unique discovery. I had never run more than 10 miles in one stretch before and so I pushed through some barriers and found some amazing truths on the other side.

I ran the race with one of my sisters, Nicole. She was actually the one who invited me to run this race in the first place. You see, back in October 2007, my left knee began causing me a great deal of pain so I went to a Physical Therapist for two months and did some exercises to get the joint realigned. A few days after Christmas, the pain in my knee disappeared. I went to my Physical Therapist and she was as amazed as I was by this. She counseled me not to get carried away and start running again just because there was no pain at the moment.

However, a month later, my sister Nicole told me that she was running a half-marathon in May and asked me if I would like to join her. Everything seemed to be screaming at me not to do this, and I was sure that if I said yes that I would just injure myself. But something else in my mind felt perfectly at peace with the idea of doing something difficult with my sister, and I decided to trust that feeling instead of giving into my fear.

For the next three months, I trained hard to prepare for the half-marathon. I tried running on a treadmill, but that felt uncomfortable and awkward, so I mostly rode an exercise bike for nearly an hour each day. Like an ominous harbinger, the pain in my knee began to return when I tried to run, but I simply bought a knee brace and tried not to focus on the pain. I dropped about 15 pounds in the month leading up to the half-marathon, not that I was particularly heavy to begin with, but it felt good to get leaner.

The day of the race came, and I had to wake up at 4:30 a.m. to travel down to Tacoma for the race’s start at 7:30 a.m. I forgot to eat breakfast that morning. I met up with my sister and her family who were there to cheer us on. I noticed one of the runners was dressed like Elvis Presley, with a giant black wig, white jumpsuit and sunglasses. I’m sorry I didn’t get a picture of him.

The first three miles went quite well. I had run many Cross Country races in high school, and so running 3.1-mile races came naturally. However, as the race stretched longer and longer I began to worry. Both of my knees began to hurt, my legs began to burn and I began to wonder if I could finish the race. When I saw the 11-mile mark, I was ready to surrender to oblivion. My strength was fading fast and I was losing hope that the race would ever end. Luckily, my sister Nicole was running next to me and she was able to encourage me to keep going. Seeing her continuing to go strong and hearing her comforting words helped me push through the walls that threatened to keep me from completing the race, and I was able to endure to the end.

Once I triumphantly crossed the finish line, I could barely walk. My knees and legs seemed to stiffen so that they became almost impossible to walk on. I hobbled around for a while with Nicole and her family and then drove home to lie down for the rest of the weekend. I could hardly move on Saturday and Sunday, but the pain gradually lessened and I was able to exercise for 40 minutes on Monday.

Whew! That’s a long story. Now that I’ve let it out, I can see several applications to other aspects of life, and I’ll try to focus on just one.

Long-distance running has appealed to me for many years, as opposed to short-distance sprinting. I like the consistent discipline and prolonged amount of time that goes into long races. You can take little mistakes or problems in stride, while in a short race one mistake can cost you precious tenths of a second that can ultimately lead to your defeat.

Likewise, our success in the real-estate industry is not based upon our short-term sprint to the finish line, but a concerted, long-term effort to grow and perform better each day. Small mistakes along the way can be taken in stride if we have the right perspective and realize that we have miles to go and needn’t sweat the small things along the way.

I was able to push through my fears, limitations and pain to accomplish something I hadn’t thought possible. May we all strive to do the same thing as we face personal and professional challenges.


Editor’s Note:
Robert Lockard is the Public Relations & Media Specialist with LuxuryRealEstate.com. I am Robert. I create all of LuxuryRealEstate.com’s newsletters, write the editorials in LuxuryRealEstate.com Magazine and much more. I hope you enjoy the pictures of me before and during the half-marathon.