It’s a quiet night for New York Marathoners – the night before a culminating effort, before testing hundreds and thousands of hours of training.

I don’t offer anything original: a well-known speech that recognizes the greatness in everyone for participating and “daring”. The speech recognizes the effort of all runners who risk, whether it’s in a mile race or a marathon.

The speech, “It Is Not The Critic Who Counts”, by Theodore Roosevelt, is well-known and worth remembering. It reminds us to participate and risk:

It is not the critic who counts,
or how the strongman stumbled and fell,
or where the doer of deeds
could have done better.

The credit belongs to the man
who is actually in the arena,
who knows the great enthusiasms,
the great devotion,
and who spends himself
in a worthy cause.

If he fails,
at least he fails while daring greatly,
so that he may never be
one of those cold and timid souls,
who know neither victory nor defeat.

Tonight, we salute New York Marathoners. You’re in the arena, and we’ll cheer for your enthusiasm.