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.

Training in the Dark

 

By now I see that I won't ever stop training.  Life events have taken most of the opportunities to compete but I seem to get up and go after training each day like there was a good reason for it.  I am training almost with the same purpose and intent as when I trained for events.  And I wonder: what is wrong with me?  

Perhaps there is a part of me that won't give up completely.  Maybe the training is the holdout in the process of complete surrender, and I just don't want to go there.  

And perhaps training has become so much of who I am that I can't give it up if I want to.  Perhaps it is my tattoo that I won't have removed no matter what.  Maybe age and circumstance have taken all except this, but I think I have drawn my line in the sand on training  Till death do us part, so to speak.  

At the same time, when I finish my workouts and feel proud and grateful to God for this ability, I am still saddened somewhat that I can't take the results of my training anywhere anymore.  Its strange but training makes me glad and it makes me sad, at the same time. No matter.  My gratitude outweighs my sadness.  And, I thank God for all the events and training I have done in the past and ask Him for more health and opportunity to train in the dark. 

Ironman Diary Day 7

A full week of chronicling my latest ironman journey.  Yes, I have been on this track a half dozen times before.  I would imagine those around me are tired of hearing about my ironman stuff:  old news, one failure or aborted attempt after another:  Ho Hum.

And so, I don't talk about my ironman venture much.  I might with people online but I am pretty much a secret agent for ironman here.   That's OK.  This is for God anyway. 

Sometimes it would be nice to share when this stuff gets hard.   Take today.  I didn't sleep well at all and woke up  feeling awful.  Coffee only made it worse, and I wondered how I was going to get the long run of the week done?   One step and then another was the only option and I did that.  Oh my, how many times have I done that; pulled a good run out of a bad morning; made a beautiful ending from an ugly beginning.  It  was good training for going on when I  feel rotten; good ironman training.   Two hours and fifteen minutes later, it was over.  There was gratitude, there IS gratitude.  And gratitude brings hope for tomorrow and the rest of the  miles of the journey.