I ran into a friend of mine at the track once. We decided to have a friendly race…one mile.

Starting off, he pulled just ahead of me. I thought I would close the distance and pass him after a short bit, but could never quite do it.

The whole last lap my body was on fire, and I was pushing it as hard as I could. He crossed the line 10 meters ahead of me. He didn’t even look winded, just a dead-set look in his eyes.

Afterwards, I asked him how he ran that fast, and he told me that it is all in the motivation you light in your mind…imagining your own world and blotting out everything else.

So I asked, “What do you imagine?”

He replied, “What do you?”

I told him that to run faster, I like to imagine that I am being chased by a wolf.

He smiles and says, “In my mind, I am the one chasing the wolf.”

That was the day that I started to understand.