54%

Not even great athletes win all the time.

After a not-great run this week.

This month, a graduation speech by tennis star Roger Federer went viral. In it, he told graduates that

“In tennis, perfection is impossible. In the 1,526 matches I played…I won almost 80% of those matches…what percentage of POINTS* do you think I won in those matches? Only 54%. In other words, even top-ranked tennis players barely win more than half the points they play. When you lose every second point, on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot.”

The math on this is peculiar to tennis, but the metaphor is obvious: no one wins every moment of every time they try something. The same is true in running: not all your runs are going to be great, and some of them won’t even be mediocre. Some of them will be slogs, and for no apparent reason. I have to figure it like this: 

I’ve been running for 34 years. If I assume that I took 2 days off per week on average, which I don’t do anymore but I used to, and assuming I missed another 30 days out of down days, random weather, and timing, I worked out about 227 days every year, which is a total of 7,718 runs-or-cross-training-for-running days in my life. Throwing in an additional 200 days missed because of injury or childbirth, that’s still 7,518 workouts. That’s a lot! I won a lot of races, including one earlier this year, and running is usually fun for me, but I’m here to tell you:

not always

Like Roger Federer, like everyone, I lose a lot of points. 

This week, I’ve been going through some slogs. I had to skip some runs for travel days last week, and until last night, I was feeling really slow. Those runs, I just try to focus on my tomorrow self. How will I feel when I get done with this run, if I make it? I’ll feel proud of myself, that’s how. How will I feel tomorrow when I wake up? I’ll feel like I did everything I could yesterday to prepare for today. 

We all have sluggish runs; we all just have go jog sometimes (shout out,

Raziq Rauf

!), and that’s okay. That’s training; that’s pushing yourself. Make it through; remember that you’re going to lose a bunch of the points you try to win. But the best news is: no one point, no one mile or run or series of runs makes or breaks you. There’s more to come, as long as you get out there. So motivate, even if you’re not feeling your best, and for today, remember: go run. 

*In tennis, points accrue to the player who successfully returns the volley of their opponent for longer than the opponent can. The ball can land inside the court boundaries once before a return is required. If one player cannot return the ball to the other side of the net before the ball hits twice, a point is awarded to the opponent who hit that stroke. Points increase in value as the game continues, and winners must win by at least two points, so you can still win a match even if you lose a few of the first points.