COLUMN
By Marissa Groenewald
To all MY unsung heroes out there who don’ t wear capes.
Medals are cool, but heart is better.“ I did it!” is cool, but“ I keep on doing it” is better.
Look, finishing something hard deserves to be celebrated, but lately I ' ve been thinking about the people whose stories we don ' t see.
They may never even realise that someone like the Rope Runner is watching them and drawing courage from the way they’ re doing it.
Or someone ' s child is watching their parent refuse to give up. A friend is watching their friend rebuild after disappointment. A fellow runner is watching someone come back after months of injury and thinking:“ Perhaps I can try again too.”
Perhaps that ' s where some of the most remarkable victories happen.
Because just like that, an ordinary person becomes somebody else ' s hero. Those heroes who never even know they’ re wearing capes.
The ones who train for months, get up early, sacrificing sleep. The ones who juggle jobs, children, responsibilities and exhaustion to squeeze in the discipline of training. The ones who put plasters over blisters, when the last thing they felt like doing is training. The single parents, the mentally exhausted, the people fighting anxiety and depression. The person who got injured, lost confidence, had a bad day, missed a goal or never made it to the finish line.
What about them?
We don ' t see the sacrifices, the doubts or the battles people fight just to keep going. We don ' t see the person who cried in the car after a disappointing race, then got up a few days later and started training again.
As a runner, I know how easy it is to measure success in kilometres, times, medals and finishes. We compare ourselves to other people. To the person we were last year, or to the version of ourselves we thought we ' d be by now, we often forget to look at how far we’ ve actually come.
Maybe you didn ' t finish the race. Maybe you walked more than you ran. Maybe your goal was to run a PB, and instead you discovered that your body had other plans. Maybe life happened, as it so often does, and your dream had to wait. That doesn ' t erase the work you put in.
And NO, we shouldn’ t ignore pain and push through an injury just to prove a point.
BUT what we definitely shouldn’ t do is confuse our results with our worth. READ THAT AGAIN!
Some of the most inspiring people I know aren ' t necessarily the ones standing on podiums. They ' re the ordinary people who keep showing up. The ones who quietly work at becoming a little stronger and braver each day. Who never win medals, or run a marathon, yet they keep showing up.
So, the next time you see someone cross a finish line, celebrate them. Cheer loudly. They earned it, but remember the people who didn ' t get there, too. The people who tried, who learned, who rested, who recovered and who will perhaps stand at another start line when they ' re ready.
The finish line is only one part of the story.
Sometimes the real victory is everything it took to keep going.
Keep showing up. You never know who you ' re inspiring.
Protecting lives, one skip at a time.— The Rope Runner www. modernathlete. co. za 27