Monday, August 30, 2010

The Best Laid Plans

These "Miles of the Journey" have not worked out exactly like I planned. My training plan has been revised three times. Events have been added and others cancelled. There were unforeseen medical distractions. There is a broken bike, tires that separated on me for no reason, my favorite long bike route made difficult with increasing traffic and so on. Even my goal half ironman distance event has been changed. It is as if my best efforts to control get thrown back at me.

John Steinbeck wrote in Travels With Charlie, something to the effect that you don't take a trip. The trip takes you. And I believe it. Wouldn't it be dull if it all went as planned? Managing the unpredictable, the unplanned and to keep moving forward, is a valuable skill for overcoming in endurance sports and in life itself.

Who doesn't like to play in the big waves; walk boldly out into the surf, to be taken asunder, carried along, to rise, stand, and with a smile, walk into the waves yet again. Thank God for the challenge of the waves: the unpredictable and all we can't control.

A journey is like marriage.
The certain way to be
wrong is to think you
control it.
- John Steinbeck

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