If they ain’t crying, they ain’t trying!!

I’ve always found running boring without a ball, but a lot of working from home, building this community online, and January weather has quietly killed my daily step count. So running has been on my mind of late.

At the same time, my daughter needs a bit more stamina for her football. So the other night, almost on a whim, I said: “Let’s run the big hill.” And we did. Halfway up, she cried.

She wanted to stop. I didn’t let her. I ran next to her and an honest line just came out:
“If you ain’t crying, you ain’t trying.”

For me, it wasn’t about breaking her. It was about helping her recognise the feeling of stretch – that point where your legs hurt, your lungs burn, your brain screams “this is too much”… and you keep going safely anyway. That feeling is gold in sport and in life.

The next night she wanted to do it again. This time her four‑year‑old brother wanted to come. Now we go most days. Sometimes before football. Sometimes after football. Sometimes when it’s cold and dark and the sofa looks like a better idea.

Yes, it’s building their stamina. Yes, they’re learning to set goals and chase them up a hill. But the real win has been the little chats you only get when you’re working through something hard together. On those runs, they talk about trying, about their limits, about what their maximum effort felt like, and how far they got compared to last time. You can hear them slowly finding comfort inside the stretch, not trying to escape it.

This small running habit is my way of keeping a direct line open: shared effort, shared jokes, shared hard bits. If we keep this up, it won’t be long before I’m the one crying on that hill, and they’re the ones dragging me to the top

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