"Effort is only effort when it begins to hurt" [José Oretega y Gasset In Search of Goethe From Within, Letter to a German]


Effort

The motto on Wrexham Athletics Clubs' badge is Ymdrech which is Welsh for Effort. Whilst running one day this caught my attention and made me think a bit more about the word Effort.

Think about the following sentence: “It is an effort to run.” How does it make you feel? Positive or negative?

It's an effort to have a running life: diet, sorting out clothes, arranging times, thinking about the right way to train, book races, travel, etc...

Often the phrase “it's too much of an effort” is engraved into our psyche and leads us to dread the activity and not bother. Effort has become a negative word. But it should be positive.

Effort is an achievement. When you run you use physical energy, effort, to achieve.