That’s part of being an endurance athlete. Who in their right mind wouldn’t find excuses to escape an hour or more of suffering? Excuses always lead to a reckoning. We find reasons not to take that first step out the door, just as we find ways to be - or not to be - our best. Weakness, doubt and fear are parts of the human condition. Facing them instead of fabricating an elaborate ruse to sidestep them - hoping to avoid them but ultimately carrying them in our hearts and minds and psyche until they whittle away at our being - gives us a direct route to hope and dreams. Along the way, we reap all those other by-products that make the suffering a tonic for our souls.