For a number of years, the late Noel Carroll contributed regular and popular Training Tips to Irish Runner Magazine.
Noel’s Running Wisdom Columns are as relevant today as they were back in the 1990s- and are well worth sharing.
Dream
By Noel Carroll
DREAM. It is an important part of training to think ambitious thoughts, aspire to dizzy heights and dream impossible dreams.
Dreams are about possibilities. Dreamers do not accept what they are, they imagine what they can be.
It is dreaming that gets us through the day to day drudgery of training. It is dreams that get us motivated when we don’t feel like training. It is dreams that bridge the gap between labour and art.
When we cease to dream we cease to make progress. When we cease to dream our training becomes routine, our effort moderate, and our running uninspired. So we have to work on our dreams.
There is of course a big difference between dreams and vanity, ego or conceit. Dreaming is a private process- a process of mentally establishing our ideal. It is a positive force not afflicting us here today but guiding us to a better tomorrow.
Dreamers can be easily misunderstood but they cannot be easily beaten. Dreamers can lose the run of themselves in the eyes of others but they retain the glint in their eye and the spring in their step- they are always on the way somewhere.
Many runners start with spectacular dreams and all too often fail to realise them because of too little encouragement, poor guidance and negative advice.
So don’t let your dreams be shattered by the dull, the mediocre, the ordinary or the “realist”,
You are as good as your dreams. Dare to dream and you will see your dreams become reality.
