The Power of the Starting Line: Why Showing Up Changes Everything

What I've learned in the past year about aging, adventure and showing up.

For years, I’ve been intrigued by a simple but powerful question: What’s the most I can accomplish just by showing up?

For me, the concept often plays out in trail running, but it applies to nearly anything in life. The only two rules in this experiment:

1. I haven’t intentionally trained for it.

2. It’s not medically irresponsible.

I’ve tested this theory a few times recently, and the results have been eye-opening.

The Low Bar for Success

Long before I ever tried endurance events, I learned that simply being there could lead to progress. In college, I realized that showing up for class—sitting up front, listening, and taking a few notes—was enough to earn good grades. I wish I’d understood that before several unproductive years. In my professional life, answering emails and being on time has led to unexpected opportunities. The bar for success in so many areas of life is shockingly low—not because things are easy, but because many people don’t take the first step.

The Backyard Ultra: A Lesson in Showing Up

With this in mind, I signed up for a backyard ultra, an endurance race that blends strategy and pacing in equal measure. The format is simple: runners complete a 4.17-mile loop every hour, on the hour, until they physically can’t continue.You don’t have to be the fastest, strongest, or best-trained. You just have to make it to the starting line at the top of each hour. If you’re there, you get to keep going. If you’re not, you’re done.

The record for this specific race? 241+ miles—nearly 58 consecutive hours! My goal was more modest: one mile for every year of my age—54 miles.

I didn’t make it.

After tweaking my back a few weeks before and frankly, not training enough for endurance, I fell short. My final distance: 33.6 miles before timing out on my last lap. I overlooked the strategy component—I didn’t hydrate or rest my legs enough—but I wasn’t disappointed. I had my answer: I was capable of more than I thought, just by showing up.

A Second Attempt: The 50K Race

Two months later, I found myself in a familiar situation—another race, another tweaked back, and minimal training. This time, my buddy Keith and I tackled a 50K trail race in Huntsville. Neither of us had the ideal lead-up, and neither of us slept much the night before.

But we started.

And we finished.

In fact, we beat more than half the competitors because we made it to the starting line and kept moving forward. Confession: Keith beat me by more than a half hour.

The Reward of Doing Hard Things

In 2024, I set a goal to complete a trail race every month, including events in two other states. Some were brutally difficult (the 25-mile ruck), while others were hard with a dose of adventure (Charlotte, NC, and Jackson Hole, WY).

Here’s the funny part:

• I don’t love running.

• I’m not particularly good at it. (I power walk about 25% of the time and when I’m running, it’s hard to tell the difference.)

• It’s undeniably hard on my aging limbs.

And yet, these challenges have been deeply rewarding—not because they’re fun or easy, but because they prove I can do them. And that mindset carries over into other areas of life.

If I can run a race I’m unprepared for, I can:

• Help someone when I’d rather be home watching a movie with Annabel.

• Show up to a social event when I’d rather be doing almost anything else.

• Try hard things and be okay with the outcome, success or failure.

The Power of the Starting Line

People rarely quit at the starting line, even when they feel ill-equipped. Getting yourself there is often the hardest part. But once you step forward, momentum takes over.

So, what’s your starting line?

Whatever it is, just show up and see what happens.

Because sometimes, that’s all it takes.