Endurance

Merriam Webster's dictionary defines endurance as "the ability to withstand hardship or adversity; especially: the ability to sustain a prolonged stressful effort or activity".  But to me endurance is more than just withstanding hardship, or just dealing with a bad situation.  Endurance is more about transcending hardship, or rising above a difficult situation.  When we just deal with a bad situation, we are saying to ourselves that we accept that situation without question, thus addressing only the immediate hardship.  But when we rise above adversity, we enable ourselves to see over the forest to the mountains and valleys beyond.  We not only address the immediate situation, but we find the path to avoid theses adverse situations again, or at lead to better deal with these situations.

This brings me to another definition of endurance.  Permanence.  Homer's The Iliad and the Odyssey endure because the stories are so meaningful and accessible.  You many even say they transcend time!  So, when I think of endurance I also think of permanence, or "the ability to continue or remain without fundamental or marked change".

When people say that marathon runners are "endurance" athletes, most people think of only the first definition, the suffering part of endurance, but they forget the permanence part of endurance.  Marathon runners endure.  Not only can they suffer through the difficulty of running 26.2 miles, but they have the ability to run mile 1 and mile 26 at exactly the same pace, with the same amount of strength and ability.  Endurance is more than suffering.  Endurance is transcendence.