At some point in your life, someone - usually a parent or a social studies teacher - will tell you anyone can grow up to be U.S. President, and for a moment you consider whether you want the job. Then you dismiss the idea.

However, a few years later, your gym teacher or coach challenges your class or team by saying if you want it badly enough, you can be an Olympic champion or pro athlete. Many of us take the bait.

Soon after comes the reality check. Seems the teacher or coach forgot to tell you about heredity - that in addition to hard work, you need a little luck in the gene pool to elevate your eye-hand coordination, sprint speed, vertical jump and agility beyond that of your competitors.

After a zillion hours of driveway basketball shots, catching baseballs caroming off garage doors, and dribbling soccer balls around the yard, those of us who still find ourselves sitting on the bench start looking for something that will reward us for our hard work.

Casting about among high-school sports options, it becomes obvious distance running requires the least amount of classical athletic prowess. If you have a physique slighter than a Clydesdale and are willing to run the miles, you stand a good chance of becoming a decent runner.

In the beginning, improvement comes quickly. Soon you can leave most traditional athletes gasping for breath as you race ahead of them in gym-class runs or track practices. Finally, the skinny kid triumphs over the muscle-massed jocks.

If you want it badly enough, it seems you can be state champ. So you dedicate yourself to running, noting with delight that your times keep dropping and finishes improving. Buoyed by success, you eat right, get enough sleep and follow your coach's plan to the letter.

Then, after that first year of serious training, you realize some runners who don't work as hard make faster progress. You ran in the off-season and they didn't; you never miss practice, they do; heck, they may even smoke or drink. Yet for all their transgressions, they run faster.

It seems unfair. You thought running was different than the other sports. No one told you some of a runner's success is determined by fast- and slow-twitch fibers, anaerobic threshold and oxygen transport.

Hard work will get you a long way, but to reach the top some genetic assistance is needed too. This realization causes more than a few folks to quit the sport.

What you need is to reassess your running.

To begin, it's an individual sport. How others run should have no bearing on how you run or feel about running. You control your destiny. Through time trials and races, you constantly get feedback. You always know where you stand.

Instead of worrying about factors you can't control, such as teammates' efforts and whatever genetic inadequacies you may have, your first priority should be you. Live and train to maximize your potential. Race your hardest and celebrate the results.

If you've improved your time or felt you ran your best, that is reason to rejoice. Too often, a runner fails to appreciate his best races because he compares himself to others.

Running and racing can be sources of joy and fulfillment throughout your life, if you remember that tons of desire and hard training miles are no guarantee you'll win fame and fortune.

A lifetime of running, however, virtually guarantees you good health and fitness that far surpasses that of most former high-school athletes, who find, as they near middle age, that their only involvement in football, basketball, soccer and baseball is as a spectator.

Instead, if you strive to do your best and accept whatever that yields, you'll be running long after your peers have turned in their jerseys.

Dave Foley edited Michigan Runner for 14 years and continues trying to run his best. MR