Keeping Records - I Am Blessed

 Keeping records.  It has always been my thing.  The beauty of it for me is that most of the time, I can look at my records on training and pretty much tell where life is going.  Which brings me to this: It is as I think Aristotle wrote, "We are what we repeatedly do."  So, in records, I can see what I have repeatedly done and see pretty much who I am at the moment and whether I am headed for a better me or is life going down the toilet?  

Other people may have other methods of maintaining personal discipline in life, but this is my way of checking my weather.  Plus, records can be my own cheering section.  When I look back and see I had the best week in a couple of months, it seems I can hear the applause, though no one knows or cares except me.  Records are the medium for my own personal delusion, which has kept me sane, happy, and mostly on course through 40-plus years of this.

Also, records can be a source of gratitude.  When I look back and see all I have done, it is impossible for me not  to say, "Thank you, God.".  I am blessed.

Getting Stopped by the Officer

 

My wife and I were having so much fun that the policeman thought we were drunk.  Perhaps I was driving all over the road, but there wasn’t any traffic.  We were just having so much fun and laughter; lots of life, and some of my best jokes-in my opinion, of course.  The swirling bright lights behind our vehicle caused me to pull over, wondering what the problem was. 

Driver’s license, insurance card, then:  “Have you been drinking, sir?”  I laughed, but the officer failed to see the humor.  “Walk on this line from here to there.  Ok, now touch your toes.”

I was still a little giddy from the good time we had been having.  “Officer, ninety percent of the people in the world can’t touch their toes.  Does that mean that only ten percent of the population is sober at any one time?”  I laughed and tried to make light of, and enjoy my first ever field sobriety test.   I had not had alcohol in more years than I could remember, so I knew if I failed any kind of sobriety test, they would have to make it up on me.  I was sure. 

The officer soon loosened up a bit as it became quite apparent that we were really having a good time, really were, without alcohol or other substances.  We both could enjoy life to its fullest without help, except for the peace that comes from that surety that is Jesus Christ. 

“Watch where you are going and try not to wander all over the road when you're having a good time.”

 I can’t be sure, but I think he smiled just a little to himself.

“Thank you, officer.”

 

Arriving at the Begining Again

 When I began running, I couldn't do a quarter mile.  It started out of frustration  but ended up staying with me for i a lifetime 

I can remember so well that first angry morning.  Though I had done lots of physical work chopping wood, building a fence, digging septic lines, and other back-breaking jobs, I wasn't physically prepared for running.  I couldn't breathe.  Of course, I was in the throes of an asthma attack at the time but later, when I wasn't, breathing was still an issue.  I remember that first time I completed a whole quarter of a mile, hallelujah, and praise God when I finally did a whole mile. That was forth three years ago.

Now, after 32 marathons, 53 triathlons, and hundreds of events of various lengths and having logged mileage equivalent to over two times around the world at the equator, I found myself struggling again to run a quarter of a mile. 

An injury digging on my septic system was compounded by an injury in a bike wreck has me not moving that much the last four months.  Though I did some minimal indoor biking, my breathing is not doing well with running or trying to run that quarter mile, Just like before. Could it be that the more things change, the more they remain the same?  

Sometimes you have to go back to the beginning to find that not much has changed.  There is you, your drive, your persistence, your expectations from it, and there is still your frustrations. And the frustrations from forty-three years ago show up in life today.  

So the decision is always the same with every setback;  Is the ending or a beginning?  Am I to " arrive at the beginning and know it again for the first time?

This time it will be different, but it will be built upon the same.  Faith, hope,  and gratitude to God that I still can. 

Is It Enough?

 Maybe it is because I am so aware that I don't have that much longer to live?  Perhaps, I don't want to spend precious and depleting time getting over some injury?  Perhaps it's something like Thoreau wrote about when he left Walden.  He says something to the effect that he left the woods for a good reason, as he went there and had other lives to live and had spent enough time on this one. My goodness, but I have spent a lot of time on this one.  Is it enough?

This is where the rubber meets the road:  Is it enough?  At times like this year, mostly recovering from injuries, it certainly seems so.  Surely, after all I  have done in endurance sports, I don't have anything to prove - or do I? 

Perhaps I just need to prove I still can.  Perhaps proving I still can that helps hold the life door shut and not let feeling old get in.  Maybe there are things to yet prove.  Perhaps there are mountains,  though different mountains now, to climb? 

We've Changed But the Incline of the Hill Hasn't - Push On

 

 

Everyone who has run or biked a sizable hill knows the feeling.  At first, it isn’t too bad. Momentum carries you into the first part of the incline.  “This hill ain’t so bad!”

That is sort of how it is with youth.  Things come easy.  If we are blessed the hill goes on for us, they keep coming at us.    Into the hill, the legs start to strain and the breathing is getting more labored.  The arms are having to pump harder to help out.  Now you see upon looking up that the hill seems so much longer and steeper than it did before—and harder. Yes, it gets harder almost with each step. So at this stage of life the gloves start coming off for the youth.

It goes on and on, pedal stroke upon pedal stroke and we seem to be barely moving.  Dig down.  This is where the rubber meets the road.   We are youth growing up, becoming men and women in the real world. 

Then, it seems, as we begin to approach the top of the hill, we reach the steepest part.  This could be middle age, facing your frailties and now diminished ability.  You have changed but The hill hasn’t.  It stands as tall, as steep, and as resolute as when you were much younger.  

Now, it gets really tough.  Dig down. Don’t walk.  It hurts!  Don’t quit!  Keep going no matter how slowly. Then there is a more level spot as the hill gives up before we do and we breathe deeply to recover our wind and smile as best we can at the beauty of  it all. It was a very good day.  I was  a very good life.

 

Trusting in My Landmark

 Being a triathlete again seems so far away.   I look across this great sea of issues, and I can't see the other side that well. 

It reminds me of when I fished on this lake ten miles wide in my small boat.  To get back across the lake, the object was to find a landmark on the other side and focus my travel back on that landmark.  Sometimes it was cloudy.  Sometimes it was hazy.  Sometimes it was raining.  Sometimes the waves pitched the boat about, but I had to strain and be sure to focus and travel in the direction of my landmark.

The water has been rough lately, and there have been rains and storms.  My little boat seems so ill-equipped for this voyage. My landmark is God.  And, I know I must pursue that landmark across this lake of severe disappointment.  

So today, I put the bow of my boat into the waves and head toward the landmark.  He will be there to guide me, whatever the weather.  Today, let me put fear aside and trust in my landmark to guide me across.

Fire Inside

 We have to be challenged.  We need to be confronted.   If life appears easy, maybe we are probably missing something.    Sometimes when things get too bland, ordinary, and routine, there is a hunger within that can't quite be explained, described, or exorcised.  We can find ourselves going nitnoid about things that really don't matter, maybe because we don't have anything in our easy lives that does matter. Perhaps we are programmed to regularly need some kind of quest, an adventure.  

Yeah, you can get the new car, the latest hot gadget,  and know all the attributes of your phone and iPad, and be so smart and informed, but that is not nearly enough. Sure, it's fun, satisfying, and pleasurable at the moment, but it is not sustaining.  Its like eating candy to satisfy your hunger.  You feel good and full, and have energy and focus, until the sugar spike ends.   

Could we be hungry for more solid food that feeds our true selves?  Could we be hungry for less certain outcomes?  Real adventure?  

When tapping on an icon on yet another screen doesn't do it for us, where do we go to fill that empty spot?   What do we do when multimedia is just not enough to fill the empty spot we can't describe?  What do we take to cure the growl in the stomach of our souls for the real food we were made to eat?  

Growth is restless for something else, perhaps something a little more wild and uncertain? Growth happens on the edges of the comfort zone.

Have we muddied the waters between here and there, between where we are and what we could be, between what we are doing and what we could be pursuing, between who we are and the person we could be pursuant to be?  Are we squelching that passion to chase an uncertain outcome?   Down deep, I think most do, but some suppress it more successfully.  

Thoreau wrote, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."  That was in the 19th century. I can't imagine the amount of desperation lived out now.  

Actively envisioning doing another triathlon, yet only half-heartedly planning  it, still quickened my pulse so that I wondered where I had been living all this time   . Life is good.  God has been good to me. I am grateful.

 However, I am not ashamed to say, something is still missing, and I think it is some instinctive lure toward adventure, an activity maybe a little larger than myself, beyond my strength,  involving a degree of risk.   Maybe that is why some people climb mountains, have affairs, drive fast,  take arduous long bike rides, go to theme parks and take risky rides, and so on.  Maybe there's something in the DNA of some of us that calls us to the edge of ourselves and beyond. 

  

Looking at the races, envisioning the event and everything included, fills me with a fervor for life and the kind of Hope that, for me, only God is capable of creating. 

  

Love the Climb

 When I fell across that hole I had dug, it pulled something in my upper back and shoulder.  It has taken a couple of months to start getting better.  Sleeping still isn't really comfortable.  But, like so many injuries before, it is all part of the miles of the journey.  

Endurance sports have gifted me through these miles, with several cracked ribs, pulled shoulders, trashed knees, torn up hands, cut legs, sprained wrists, a split sternum, and a few others I can't recall at the moment.  They hurt. They all had their moments to torment, but the built-in miracle called the body eventually healed them. They are all part of the journey, a part of the life.

As with every injury, the returning ability gives me such gratitude. The mountains God has put in my path have taught me how to climb and to love the climb even more.  

Face the Truth if You Want to Be Free

 Life is slippery sometimes, and sometimes, the comfortable, safe, and easy things grease the hands to such an extent that real life  can become hard to hold on to. It slips away moment by moment, attending to maintaining the status quo of an easy life. It becomes a continuing personal, physical, and even spiritual degradation process. Instead of honing skills toward peace, performance, and personal improvement at some risk, we became proficient at quickly making excuses. Self-deception and denial can become our sport and greatest skill. Small aches become perceived as big pains and small issues can take on the appearance of major problems.  

We try to give it a value it doesn't have. But self-deception never really works. Deep down, in quiet moments, we know the truth. We just can't confront it directly. It is just too hurtful to our comfortable little lives built on illusion.  We are scared. 

So, I guess I want to be fearless.  The Bible says,--"Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free."   Face the truth.  I want to be free.  

HAVING AND BEING YOUR OWN PET MONKEY

 My wife once told me, “I love living with you. You're so amusing. It’s like having your own pet monkey .”   I think she’s right.  Lots of things I do and think don’t make sense, and are not rational. And so I deliberate what I want to do with all its limitations and then ignore the obvious; the pet monkey is amusing.  So onward I go, unrewarded and unheeded,  plodding off into the night to fight a war no one cares about. 

However, I can tell that moments when life gets vivid reawaken what we already know, and getting closer to my truest self is a sort of reunion. The liberation felt by being oneself, warts and all, is amazing.

And so, at 81 I am still going to ride bikes. Though my doctor says my knee is a trainwreck and I should never run again, but have surgery, I am running, however incredibly slow it is.  My young grandchild walks faster than I run, but the pet monkey says,” Try anyway.”

So, I smile as I write this because it  all makes life and what’s left of it fun and “amusing.” I would rather be that pet monkey than a well-liked imitation of someone else

Would I Do It All Over Again?

 Miles of the Journey......sometimes I wonder did I take this journey or did this journey take me?  Think of the "other things" I could have been doing if I  had not been training for the last 40-plus years.  Think of all the time I could have put into other possibly more worthy pursuits.  I could have been a success rather than an endurance bum looking for the next hill to climb.  Am I going to say like the song says, "Lord help me, Jesus, I've wasted it so?"  

Yes, the journey took me.  It took me and molded me into who I am ., good or bad, success or trivial pursuit,  what you see is the end game. And the journey seems to have been a series of small decisions to take certain roads over others.  Am I satisfied with where my choices and my journey have taken me to or who my journey led me to be? 

In asking myself this question, I have to look at others who took other paths and made different decisions at various crossroads.  Is there a journey destination I would want to emulate if I could do it all over again?  I can't see it from here.  I can't see a life I would rather have had than this one in endurance sports.  

After 32 marathons, 53 triathlons, and countless other running and biking events, my story makes me smile.  Yeah, I'd do it all over again.  Praise God for the life He gave me and the closeness with Him that was part of the bargain along the Miles of the Journey.

Thank God for the Moments

 The last bike I bought was 11 years ago.   I was  70.  Now at 81, why in the world would I need a new bike?  Beats me.  The child in me is still kicking, like in a mother's womb ready to be born.  There will be the pain of childbirth, fitting the bike to myself, and the biggest labor pain:  paying for that puppy.

It's a gravel bike, and with the limited road options around here,  this will give me training on dirt roads with drop handlebars; more options for training.  So I would want to be training?  Didn't I just say I am 81?  I thought so.

No matter how much longer I live to enjoy this new bike and its possibilities, it is worth it for the moments, however few they may be. The other night it had just gotten dark and I was coming in on my mountain bike.   Everything was perfect with the weather, the time of day and with my body on the bike.  How great this is, I thought.  I wish I could ride more.  It had been a long and physically arduous day but in the moment I didn't feel fatigued at all.  I had no lights so continuing the ride was not an option out here in the woods. 

However, I had the moment, if only the moment. A moment to remember and relish in lesser times.  So I am buying the bike for the moments.  Thank you God for moments.

To The Things That Matter Most

 Monday the weather is supposed to be on the upswing and I am planning a coming-out party so to speak.  Whether I do another triathlon or not, I want to put  some order to things.

Hopefully, I can schedule and plan for certain time allocations for all facets of my life to certainly include training.   This will involve some real prioritizing of what I value most and consequently try my best to spend what's left of my life on the things that matter most.

 So, here's to going with that in a couple of days.  There is a quote that speaks to that by Stephen Covey, "The things that matter most should never be at the mercy of the things that matter least." Thoreau wrote, "Our life is frittered away by detail."   

So the program is first of all to do less frittering and pay more attention to the things that matter most, to include the people who matter most.  

However,  I am not that good at this and my effort is being bathed by prayer for assistance in putting "first things first."  That, of course, is God.  If I do that, I believe the plan will fall into place. "Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven and all these things shall be added unto you." Amen

I Wouldn't Want to Be Anyone Else

 Things are all gung-ho and push on until you have an injury.  It's easy to be inspired when you are in good health and nothing hurts.  But when back spasms come and go at frequent intervals, all the rah-rah  fades into the background.  

Now it is teeth gritting and plod on time.  The only reason you keep going is because you said you would to yourself.  It was fun before, not so much now. 

Over the years of doing this crazy stuff, I have come to realize that this is where endurance sports begin and end;  in the solitary, with no fanfare plodding forward through pain and discomfort and no one really knows.  You don't really know why either except this was important to begin with. But you move on and embrace the pain.

The reason may be on the other side or the end of the course and on the other side of the pain.  Even then you may not know completely. It's not amenable to analysis. It is just who we are; no answers, no excuses,  the way God made us.  Yeah, it hurts.   But thanks God.  I wouldn't want to be anyone else. 

Gratitude for the Spirit Within

 Today, I found myself looking at the race websites and thinking of events I would like to go to.  I found some events that looked really good, but more noteworthy, I found that few things in life stir me like the prospect of challenging myself in an event. 

Lots of things have changed but this hasn't.  It feels so natural like good conversations can be.  Today is about being inspired.  It is like the apparently dead fireplace ashes stirred to find coals under all the ashes.  With a little help, they turn to flame, like my own childlike passion coming to life with prospects of competing and being challenged again.   

This passion is like God.  He never leaves.  He never changes.  I am not sure I want to either.  Thank you God for the stirring of the heart that looks beyond to see the crest of the hill the soul is craving to climb.  Thank you, God, for putting this spirit within me.  

Putting Your Face in the Cold Wind - Can We Take It Too Easy on Ourselves

 Yesterday, I rode and ran in the cold.   Lately, it seems, I have unconsciously avoided harsher conditions to train in. Back when I was more of an animal, I did that all the time.  The weather was just something I had to put up with, like a sore knee or drivers who seemed incensed with acting like they were going to run me down. 

Yesterday, there was something added that had been  missing and I felt more like an athlete because I had put up with the cold.   The miles of the journey have taken me away from myself at times, and that could be a good way to get lost.  

And the question is:  can we take it too easy on ourselves sometimes?  As we seriously age up temptations can go from booze and women to a nice cushy recliner in front of the fireplace on cold days. It's easy to get really old in a hurry.  Just let yourself go and avoid the hard spots on the road.  The word I have heard is resistance exercise slows down aging.  Maybe we should exercising our resistance to taking the easy way.

Yeah, it's all part of life. And there is nothing wrong with a nice cushy recliner in front of the fireplace either, that is, after a good hard workout putting your face into the cold wind for a while.  

Yeah, take the hard road.  It is too easy to get old.