I’ve been a runner for many years. And I’ve been many different KINDS of runner for many, many years.

There was the runner who couldn’t call herself one yet. The runner who finally trained for a race and finished it and felt something click into place. The runner who crossed deserts, Atacama and Patagonia, sand in everything, blisters with their own zip codes. And for a while, there was the runner who used running as proof.

Because alcohol crept into my running too. It became a badge of honor, almost a penance. If I could run 10 miles the morning after drinking everybody under the table, wasn’t I a badass? Cue the movie montage of badass women, starting with Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark, drinking that enormous man under the table in her freezing Nepalese bar. That was me. Or the me I was performing. Flying down sand dunes and knocking back martinis. What a life.

But that’s not what I’m writing about today.

Over the years I’ve absorbed everything I could from runners and coaches who have been through it all, people who persevere and SHINE. And one piece of wisdom has stayed with me longer than any training plan: the rule of thirds.

A third of your runs, you feel like a goddess. A third of your runs are just an average Tuesday. And that last third? You feel horrible, your legs are cement, you can’t run, you might as well quit.

Every runner knows this is true. What took me longer to learn is that it’s not just about running. It maps precisely onto sobriety. Onto any long road worth traveling.

The third that sucks

Here’s my biggest takeaway: that third that sucks is where the growth happens. That’s where the stretching happens. That’s where you show how strong you are.

So if you stumble, fall, and bruise, name that bruise. I do it all the time. (Have you met “Brutus” yet?) The humor and the perseverance are what get you back on your feet and add another layer to who you are. In my sobriety community, Sober Sis, we call the hard moments data points, and I’ve come to love that phrase. A data point is not a failure. It’s information. If you stumble and encounter one, squeeze it for all it’s worth. It is a lesson, a gift to help you discover more about yourself. Figure out why it happened, be curious, be compassionate.

That reframe was probably the BIGGEST reason I was able to not only start this journey, but STAY on it. Knowing that if a data point happened, I would not be thrown out. The reframe was everything for me. And definitely a key to my current success. Though I never, ever, celebrate tomorrow’s success today because hey, stay in the now, and all I can be certain of is today. (I say that with a smile. Call me a stoic.)

The third on top of the world

Then there’s the goddess third. In early sobriety they call it the pink cloud, that stretch when everything feels lit from within and you can’t believe you get to live this way. Some people warn you about the pink cloud, tell you not to trust it.

I say: enjoy it. You earned that. You deserve that. The good runs are not accidents any more than the bad ones are punishments. Fly down the dune.

The average Tuesday

But the third I’ve come to respect most is the middle one. The average Tuesday. No medal around your neck. Nothing extraordinary about the day. Nothing to post, nothing to toast.

But you didn’t drink. You did the steps. You made it forward another day. That’s where the consistency lives. That’s what quietly builds the foundation.

Most of a life is made of average Tuesdays. Most of a marathon is the unremarkable middle miles. If you can love those, or even just keep showing up for them, the other two thirds take care of themselves.

I reminded myself of that as I headed out the door at 6am this morning to join a group run. Was it a goddess morning? No. It was an average Tuesday in every way. But I went. I took the steps (yes, bad pun intended) and lookie here. I couldn’t wait to capture these thoughts, write them down, and share them.

Keep running, Iris. All three thirds.

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