Last week, I ran the Toronto marathon, and Julia ran the half-marathon. It was a big success all around; I felt great and cut almost 30 minutes off my last run and Julia achieved her goal of beating my half marathon PR, thus taking the Owen Cord family crown.

I choose to rawdog my races; no headphones. One of my favourite parts of a race is taking in the bystanders, reading the signs, and seeing the festivities along the course. There are the common, dad-jokey generic ones:

• “You paid for this!”
• “All this for a banana?!”
• “Today, you’re allowed to finish fast”
• “Whine now, wine later”
• “The pain is temporary, the Strava lasts forever”
• “You run better than the government”
• “You’re still faster than the TTC”
• “Rats don’t run the city, you do!”
• “Run if you think I’m sexy”
• “I trained for months to hold this sign”

And then some unique ones, which I always appreciate:

• “Don’t worry, if you fail your run here, you can always run again in Alberta!”
• “Run like your mama flew in from Mexico to watch you!”
• “[name] hurry up, I’m hungry”
• “Anything to avoid therapy”

The last time I ran a marathon was pre-Henry and I underestimated the time commitment involved; it was a lot, especially the last 6 weeks leading up to the race. Many other things took a back seat. I’m fortunate to have a supportive partner in Julia or the training schedule wouldn’t have been possible. I love running but not enough to make it such a priority in my life right now and so I’ll be taking a break for the foreseeable future.

For most of my school years, I liked school. I always enjoyed learning. And I was always a strong but not exceptional student. In grade 12, knowing my grades would determine access to Universities I took class much more seriously and excelled academically. I applied and was accepted into Ivey’s Advance Entrance Opportunity (AEO) program, which guarantees acceptance into the two-year business program beginning the third year of post-secondary, conditional upon maintaining a strong academic record (80%+ average) and extra curricular involvement.

Then I had a rough transition from high school to university. After a decade of spending most of my time with an extremely tight knit group of friends I grew up with, I went to university and had to largely start from scratch. I wasn’t particularly engaged in my coursework and ended up barely attending class. The lack of structure wasn’t good for me. I stayed up late and struggled to get up in the morning. I smoked too much, gained about 30 pounds, and started to get bad acne.  My grades slipped. In my first year, I finished with a high 70’s average and missed the 80 required to preserve my AEO status. In second year, I moved into a house with a group of friends and established a better routine; started to exercise a little bit and attend classes more, but still not much. I finished second year with just under an 80 average, which meant my first two-year average was below the threshold needed for AEO; fortunately, they did consider other factors, such as grades in certain pre-requisite courses, which were my best, and extra curricular activities. Offers were extended on a rolling basis and I can recall everyone I knew in the AEO program receiving one before me. Thankfully, I scraped through and received my acceptance in the final round. I was thrilled albeit a bit ashamed about jeopardizing the opportunity.

On the first day of school at Ivey, I can remember the Dean giving a welcome speech. In essence, “if you are in this program then you have excelled academically and in extra curriculars thus far in life. Everyone in this room is used to being a 90’s student and you will have to re-calibrate your expectations now that you’ve entered this program”. All I could think was, well fuck me. I don’t deserve to be here.

And then classes started and fortunately, I loved them. I found the content engaging. The smaller classroom sizes and case study teaching method resonated, and I started to enjoy school again. I was generally shy and didn’t participate often but I enjoyed it. It was a fantastic first term and turning point in my secondary academic experience. At the end of the first semester, grades were released. Ivey uses a tight bell curve with 80% being the class average. I received an 81%. Surprisingly, I was really disappointed. Based on my day-to-day experience in the classroom, I felt like I could do much better.

So after receiving my first semester grade, I decided two things: I would put my hand up and participate in every single class. No exceptions. And I would say “yes” and apply to every single extra curricular opportunity, no matter how busy I was. I would find the time to take it on. Throughout that second term, I stuck to my commitments and raised my average closer to 90.

I didn’t get any smarter between my first and second semester. But I did dramatically change my mindset. I stopped thinking “I’m so lucky to be here, I hope they don’t realize I’m a fraud” and started thinking “I deserve to be here”. I have and continue to believe that mindset and mantras can be extremely powerful tools in impacting your behaviors. What you believe about yourself will manifest in how you behave and there is an uncanny ability to influence your life based on those beliefs.

Gifts (i.e., presents) become a lot less meaningful when you’re an adult, have a job, and can mostly buy the things you want when you like. But when you’re a child, a big part of the excitement around your Birthday or holidays like Christmas are the gifts. For a while now, most of our family (Julia excluded), has been deliberately scaling back the material gift giving around holidays. And for good reason. I mean, do you really need another sweater? I’m slightly embarrassed to say when the weather turned this year, I counted 22 sweaters in my closet. That’s silly.

…but having said that, there is something so delightful about receiving, or even better, giving, a gift that hits just right. When you find something unique that demonstrates a deep understanding of the person’s interests or wants, it is so satisfying. And it doesn’t need to be expensive or an item necessarily. It just needs to satisfy the recipient. I’m planning to start keeping a mini tracker of gift ideas for family, friends, and colleagues because I often struggle to come up with a great idea when it’s time-sensitive around the event. Hopefully, it pays off this year and if not, well, there’s always another sweater!