Quiet Courage

I’ve been thinking a lot about Girls on the Run these days.

(Partly because I’m getting to know its badass founder, Molly Barker, and I am completely blown away by this human. More on that some other Tuesday.)

But mostly because I just found this little card tucked away in a drawer.

It’s from a Girls on the Run session on Positive Self-Talk with my daughter’s Sharon Elementary School team I coached in 2013. I don’t remember the card’s creator, but somehow, it has survived every clean-out, every move, every “do I need to keep this?” moment.

I never threw it away. And when I found it this week, it remind me little of cooking.

I thought of Martina.

She wasn’t the loudest girl on the team.

She wasn’t the fastest.

She wasn’t the popular one who spoke up first or had everyone distracted and giggling.

She was quiet. Focused.

Timid.

I’m not sure making friends came easily.

Nor did running.

Sometimes I worried that she was on the outside looking in.

But every Tuesday after school…

She showed up.

She tied her sneakers.

She listened.

She ran.

She didn’t complain.

Never asked to quit.

She just kept putting one awkward foot in front of the other. Week after week.

She never needed to be first. She just needed to finish.

Martina was the bravest damn girl on the team.

Because maybe courage is simply showing up when you are uncertain….

Being willing to take your time.

An intentional inner monologue:

I’ve got this.

Keep going.

One more lap.

I am a good cook.

At the end of the season, my meek Martina crossed the finish line of her first 5K. That finish mattered. (As did our floppy flamingos 🦩🦩🦩.)

She discovered she could do hard things. I don’t remember her chip time; I remember that gorgeous grin.

Girls on the Run might have given me a sturdy curriculum to teach, but Martina gave me a lesson I wasn’t expecting:

Sometimes courage simply whispers.

Finding that little card stopped me in my Hokas. It reminded me that the voice inside my head matters. The quiet conversation before I walk into a meeting. Before I make the phone call. Before I begin something hard.

So much time is spent applauding loud courage. The promotions. Podiums. The medals.

But the courage that truly changes us? It’s much quieter.

More than a dozen years later, I want to go back and tell Martina how flippin’ brave she was. And to tell her I’m still learning quiet courage from the bravest girl on my team...

I absolutely loved thinking of her today.

And I needed that reminder. Thank you. Happy Tuesday loves.

In this, the 30th year of its founding, I am deeply grateful for and in awe of the GOTR program and the thousands of young (and old) girls’ lives—across the world—it has strengthened, empowered, changed.