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.