A few days ago, I ran a marathon. It was my seventh one, but it came after 18 months of recovering from an achilles injury and to be honest, I had not really trained for it. A few 2 hour runs and one 25K and I decided to just give a go to test things a bit. What I did know is that it was going to hurt as I had not trained up the endurance and stamina required to make the last third of the marathon less unpleasant. The day before, I talked to my youngest about this and he responded with the typical wisdom of the young: remember, dad, it’s just pain. And that’s exactly what happened: the last 10K hurt, but according to my watch I kept a virtually flat pace throughout the race. I pushed through the pain, finished and am already thinking about the next challenge to take on. This of course translates to many aspects of life: there are times when things suck. They suck royally. And all we want to do is give up and do something else. But it often helps to remind yourself that it’s just pain. And if you want bad enough what is at the other side of it, it’s better to just push through. So, as my challenge to you today: Does it hurt? Is the result worth it? Can you suffer through it? In the end, it’s just pain.