If you don’t know this guy, you haven’t been coming to November Project Boston long enough. This dude is one of the most caring, genuine people you will ever encounter, and recently he learned an important life lesson while training for a marathon. Ladies and gentleman, here is Deniz from November Project Boston.
Soon after I joined November Project back in October of 2012, I took on qualifying for the Boston Marathon as one of my life goals. For those of you not familiar, there are two ways you can legally run the oldest marathon in the world: fundraise for a charity or qualify based on time. Boston Athletic Association (BAA) sets up very strict qualifying time goals and for my age group I had to run 26.2 miles in a BAA approved race under three hours and five minutes.
My first attempt was February 24, 2013 at Hyannis Marathon and I ended up finishing 20 minutes short. There were few things going against me on that day: it was my first marathon; the weather was cold and wet, and I didn’t train very well leading up to the race. So instead of giving up, shortly after I recovered I started looking for new opportunities to qualify. Since my training wasn’t on par, I looked for some potential fall races that would give me enough time to get faster.
Before the 2013 Boston Marathon, BAA events were not selling out very quickly. One could qualify with a late fall marathon entry, or at least that’s what I thought. So I scheduled 2 marathons: Erie Marathon on September 15 was going to be my main attempt and Marine Corps Marathon on October 27 was a backup just in case something goes wrong in Erie. In Erie I missed qualification by 27 seconds after collapsing right before the finish line. I ended up finishing Marine Corps 4 minutes 37 seconds short of Boston qualification time, but at least without collapsing this time.
Come December, I was in a bad place! I was tired and worn out from all the racing I did in the fall. I was unsure about the stability of my job after my company laid off most of its Massachusetts employees. My personal life wasn’t where I wanted it to be. I was out of shape. I was slow. I was weak. I was sad and lonely. My apartment needed cleaning, my car needed oil change, my refrigerator needed groceries; but all I wanted to do is lay around on the couch all day. The only thing I was still doing regularly was November Project.
When you’re depressed, you don’t think straight. I was contemplating putting my marathon training on halt for two years so I can attempt to qualify when I’m 34 (qualifying time is 5 minutes slower after the age of 34). Even though I missed my target by 27 seconds at that moment I didn’t think that I could get any faster. But then I start realizing that I was quitting on myself. I was accepting my failure which is something that I never did, so I got off my ass, came up with the game plan and start executing! From the personal and professional standpoint I realized that there are so many things out my control that I can’t let get to me. And from the training perspective I needed to gain back my confidence so I did the following:
Ran 150 sections of Harvard stadium! I set four stadium tours as my goal long time ago and on one snow-free Wednesday, and I was injury-free and strong enough to do it. So I ran it faster than anticipated which gave me the push I needed for the rest of the winter.
Sign up for something to train for. After a lot of thinking I decided to run New Jersey marathon in April (one week after the Boston Marathon). In hindsight this ended up being a very good decision as I was able to follow pretty much the same training schedule that everyone that’s training for Boston was on.
Be serious about my training! I needed to work harder to get stronger and faster. I promised myself that unless I have a valid excuse, I would not miss any of the MWF November Project workouts, Tuesday track workouts, Thursday tempo runs, and weekend long runs.
Find extra motivation to get the most out of my workouts. I know that my body can handle cold weather, so I thought that wearing less clothing would force me to work harder and longer in order to stay warm. I know this is not the smartest idea (and I would not recommend it) but in a silly way it worked. At times I looked insane running in shorts and a short sleeve shirt in single digit temperatures, and on few occasions I really thought I would get frost bites, but I truly believe that trying to stay warm got me in better shape as I ran those extra miles, hills and sections.
So did it work? On April 27, in Long Branch, NJ I qualified for Boston Marathon with six minutes to spare.
I want to thank to everyone at November Project, my Thursday and Saturday running and coaching team (who were also nice enough to put up with my heartache stories, frequent pee breaks and overall craziness), Ian Nurse for diagnosing my injury early and helping me heal and be ready for the race in the best possible physical and mental condition.
One point I would like you to take away from this is that whatever challenge life brings to you, do not give up when you hit the wall. It hurts and it is very humbling and discouraging when you fail. But those bruises heal, and every time you retry you are stronger than before. And believe me; eventually you will break that wall. It could be your athletic life, love life or professional life. If you are not getting to where you want to be, keep trying. Don’t think that you are not good enough, or this is your destiny, or you are unlucky. Just keep trying.
Share via socials:
You’re a huge inspiration Deniz, keep on running 🙂
Will do!
Amazing! Thanks for sharing, you’re so inspirational!
Thank you!
Deniz is the epitome of what November Project stands for. We love you Deniz.
VOTE DENIZ FOR MAYOR!
Deniz- this is beautiful. Thanks for sharing your experience with everyone. You are loved by many 🙂
🙂
Very powerful message Deniz. You inspire.
YAY Deniz!!! SF loves you.
Deniz!! Great message and I’m lucky to know you, and I continue to be inspired by your daily example. Grateful for witnessing your exuberance, your overall attitude, excitement with life. You also remind me that fulfillment in life comes from growth, by stretching, setting higher goals in every area of our lives, despite fears of not being able to reach them. Failure is inevitable – but that is really not the point, is it? Self-acceptance and understanding that going outside of one’s “comfort zone” teaches us humility (you will experience pain). Doing so will ultimately lead to a “higher” place (nirvana maybe??). It makes growth possible. That is the purpose of our lives. To not just LIVE (even though in NP we are reminded to just “Show up” – this just reminds us that we don’t have to feel “great” to participate in life and that struggle will be inevitable). Instead it reminds us that to be truly “alive” we have to challenge our self-imposed limitations of what we think is possible . A lot of people don’t understand this. But it’s uber-clear — that you do. Thank you Deniz. #Gratitude.