On Saturday I had the wonderful opportunity to run with some of the women in my running club’s beginners running clinic. All of the women had their reasons for wanting to run but there was one who struck a chord with me. Her reason wasn’t to lose weight or get in shape, it was to find discipline.

She had talked about how many of the people she admired for their discipline also happened to be runners. She has a point and if you are a runner you know this. Just think about all the work we have to put in to train for a race. All that time we spend plotting out a training plan, taking the time out of our schedules to log those miles, and then completing the race.

Heart, Commitment, Gut, Strength, Discipline, and Pride. I need one that says Joy. I’ll be wearing these until the Brooklyn Half as a reminder of what it will take to run well. (c) Stacey Cooper

But as we all know maintaining the discipline every day can be hard and our discipline can leave a lot to be desired. That is exactly what has been happening with me these past couple of weeks. I have been slacking and letting the flimsiest of excuses get the best of me. I am not proud of this.

Thankfully, this past week has been a step down week in my training plan for the Brooklyn Half Marathon so this downturn won’t hurt my training too much. But now we are getting into the meat of my training. The weekly mileage will start building up and there won’t be a single digit long run in my future.

It is time to recommit myself to this training plan and in order to do it I’ll need to dig deep and get out of this rut. But there is one other thing I’ll need to remember to get through this rough patch.

That same woman who spoke about becoming more disciplined also displayed pure joy when she finished our run. We ran two loops of the Central Park lower 1.7 mile loop giving us a total mileage of about 3.46 miles — the farthest this woman ever ran. She was elated and high-fived us and kept thanking us for running with her.

As I’m training for my 15th marathon and start thinking about training for my third marathon it’s easy to forget that joy of completing a new distance for the first time. Her joy reminded me about how excited I was when I completed my first 3.5 mile race without walking and that for the first time I felt like a runner.

Brooklyn is just about a month away and these reminders couldn’t have happened at a better time. I’m going to take them to heart and try to never forget them again.