Around 2011, I hurt my left arm and had to get surgery.

So for a while, I was pretty limited as far as what I could do with my upper body.

And that's really when I fell in love with running.

I started doing it almost every day.

Sometimes those long runs outside, clear my mind, sort of reset a little bit, and sometimes I mix it up.

Hop on the treadmill and do my favorite workout, which was a pyramid, right, where you

break 10 minutes into four segments,

four, three, two, and one, increasing in intensity with each segment, and then you start over.

And that's where this whole idea comes from. It's this treadmill workout that I want to talk about because there's a little

ritual I picked up that I still implement to this day, and it was simple. At the very end of my

workout or my run, I would always add 22 seconds. My lucky number twice, two and two. So for example, if I told myself, you know, the workout's going to be, you know, three pyramids or 30 minutes, I would stop running at 30 minutes and 22 seconds.

If I told myself it was going to be an hour, I'd stop at one hour in 22 seconds.

Always tacking on that 22.

And I don't really remember the first time I started doing it or even why.

But like so many things that 22-second period organically became a habit,

sort of evolved to take on a life of its own,

and would come to symbolize for me a little challenge.

The idea that the end is never really the end.

And no matter how tired I was or how bad I wanted to stop,

especially when you can see that finish line in reach,

I could always squeeze out a little more.

But there's always something extra to give.

...