MY DAUGHTER'S FIRST MARATHON: WHY I DREAM FAR

On May 1st my daughter ran her first marathon. I'm immensely proud because she's just seventeen. But I'm not merely proud of her.  I'm proud of all the kids who've participated in the Dreamfar High School Marathon program as we've trained this past 25 weeks. I've seen kids transformed.

The vast majority of these kids aren't competitive athletes. The wonderful thing is that they've learned that they are athletes nonetheless. While they might not be at the front of the pack in any race, they still have the ability to train smart and accomplish big goals.

The realization that they can be systematic, that they can break big things down into small steps pursued over the course of months ... this realization has implications for anything they attempt in their lives, now and into the future. I've come to know kids who started the program as middling students, who were content to scrape by with a passing grade. At the end of the final term this year, several are on the honor roll.

Because that's how life works. As you begin to realize your potential in one sphere, you understand that you can accomplish things in other spheres by following a similar strategy. A parallel lesson is that you don't have to be the best in what you do. Don't shy away from big goals just because you think others might be better than you. You need to start and be the best you can be. And once you do that, there's no telling how far you can go.

That is why I dream far.

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I've told parts of this story previously.  You can read about how my daughter dropped me for the first time on a run and about our longest training run.