My favorite thing

Simple steps to happiness:

Travel

Wake early

Find small, local coffee shop. (Pro tip- the more out of the way and granola people the better.)

Sit and watch/smell/taste the a new world.

Today's observations:

The French still smoke a lot

I should learn French. 

Needles half marathon Isle of Wight

 I suppose I should start writing about running again. Now you'll have to give me some slack because I've taken a bit of a break from both running and writing for a fair piece. The legs don't carry me quite like they used to and the words don't either. But one thing I love about running is that it's always there for you whenever you get your butt back around to it. I'm hoping words work the same way. 

A whole bunch of stuff happened over the last couple years. It probably doesn't belong here and it sure as hell isn't going to dance off these old out of practice fingers onto this page. So let's just let it be.

I'm a good bit heavier and a whole bit slower, so how do you think I'm going to get back on that horse? Run some miles. Best way to do that is to get in some races around this new country I'm calling home. There's a not so little island that I see everyday when I go walk along the ocean. The Isle of Wight is just a short ferry ride from where I live. I've lived here for over 2 years and I've never ventured over there. Now mind you, a younger me used to watch a concert that's held on this island many times back when Rock and Roll was real but alas, I still had never been. So what better way to kick off my next running career than to run a half marathon over there. 

I scheduled the ferry for the morning of the race. I had never done this ferry before but I had watched it leave from just up the road many times. So I figured that's where it always left from. I showed up early and got a nice seat where I could watch the ocean go by. It was a nice relaxing ride until I realized it wasn't going where I thought it was. It landed up the coast a bit from the 'normal' spot I'd seen the ferry go. Where they put me was a bit out of the way so the bus I'd planned to take out to the race start wasn't waiting for me like I'd planned. I did a quick search on old Google and found that the bus stops just up the road a bit from the ferry landing. So I took a walk, and a chance, and headed up to the bus stop. To my luck the bus showed up and I was on my way to the race. 

The Isle of Wight is bigger than I thought. The bus(es) from my side of the island to the other side where the race started was a good hour or so. Thanks to Google I got there in plenty of time. Got my number and chip and a quick cup of tea and I was ready. It was a small race, which I like, so the race director did the briefing to all of us in short time. I had my hydropack full, a gel, and my phone and was off. 

England has this wonderful thing where the public trails have right-of-way across the country. We were running through farmland and pasture before long. I was feeling pretty good and had fallen into a nice easy pace. I do love running through the woods. Everything was going pretty well until we started to climb. I never knew an island could have so many hills. Up and up we went. Not long ago, when I was in pretty good shape, I could always run a hill. I used to enjoy running up Mount Scott back in Oklahoma. It was never fast but it was a nice long grind up hill. I could run the whole thing without stopping. Well, on these hills there was no running. Or maybe these old bones just couldn't do it. Although I will say everyone else was walking too. One thing that jumping back on the horse does to you though is put some humility in you. I didn't care, walking up the climbs was fine, as long as I was moving. Somewhere near the top of one of the climbs someone looked over at me and said, "at least that's the last hill". I took them at their word and started pushing the pace a bit on the top. Well it turns out Brits can lie just as well as Americans because not long after that we started going up again. Bloody Brits! 

The good thing about all the hills were the views from the tops. England sits on one big block of chalk. Beautiful white steep rocks line the whole island. This makes for some amazing views out over the ocean. Needles is the southwestern tip of the Isle of Wight. It's one big empty pasture that ends, very quickly, in a cliff of brilliant white. The white cliffs of Dover are the well-known spot, but most of England coast is made up of those. Needles is one of the best. I wish everyone could see it. 

 

Chances

Do you know that the chances of you being born are 1 in 400 trillion? That’s basically zero. To say that you are a miracle is not just a cliche or a cheap pick-up line, it’s actually true.
If you live you life remembering that every day I believe you would take every chance, every opportunity, and jump at every glimmer of hope that you see. You shouldn’t even be here in the first place anyway. Why live like there’s a tomorrow when you weren’t guaranteed yesterday?
Your parents met because of chance, your grandparents met because of chance, multiply that by a few hundred more generations and you see. Every small meeting, every glance across a room, every accidental bump in a crowded elevator is astonishingly significant.
Thanks for listening.

New courses

Cheers from the UK.

Just because I moved to the UK was no reason for the rest of you to have a pandemic. Geese. I really don’t know what to say about the current global situation. It’s all a bit larger than my feeble brain to find words to express. Everyone is struggling, people are sick, people are dying. I’m keeping my optimism but I am also looking to help as many people as I have the power to. If there was ever a time for everyone to help someone else this is it. I just don’t see how this gets better if everyone doesn’t step up and do what they can.
The UK locked down last Monday after the Prime Minister scolded us for not abiding by the recommended distancing. That was a very nice weekend weather-wise so I can’t blame the Brits, I know I got out and saw as much of this area as I could. Now that’s all over, the Prime Minister has the virus and the streets are empty except for the security who will tell you to go home.
We are allowed to leave for exercise. So being a marathoner who was cooped up all week in teleconferences, I took full advantage and spent a few hours out running on Saturday.
My little island, Portsmouth, is the only island city in the UK. At least that’s what I read. The best thing I found about it though is the trail, or trails, that go all around and over it. Most of the trail runs along the coast which is wonderful for this ocean loving running. The wind yesterday was pretty strong so I fought it all along the southern and eastern coast. When I got to the north side the wind was broken by the 15th century battlements. No kidding. The north side also was mostly dirt trails which was lovely. I ran by many little ponds and there were actual swans on them. I couldn’t have asked for a better greeting from a new country than a rugged dirt trail along historic monuments while the swans enjoyed the sunny day. Hello England.
Turns out my little island is 14 miles around. I was hoping to get 20 but discovering all the new trails meant a whole lot more to me than getting a mileage goal.
I’m looking at another week of teleconferencing with all my new coworkers, most of which I haven’t met in person. It’s not the ideal way to get started and I fear I’m not doing well at it. But in true marathoner spirit, the spirit I’ve tried to live up to, I have to say I’m glad it isn’t easy. Grand memories aren’t made from sauntering along the perfect course in great weather. They are made from those times when the course is all uphill, or the rain just wouldn’t quit, or whatever other challenge stood in the way and we still managed to finish.
Good luck and stay safe everyone. I miss you all but know you’ll make it through and I can’t wait to read the stories once things calm down.
Thanks for listening.

Crossing the pond

Wednesday February 26th. “Are you still interested in an England job?”.

I thought about it overnight and early the next day I answered yes. Later that morning I sat at my desk working when my phone rang. By the end of that call I had a plane ticket to England. That’s how it started and on March 7th I took off from DFW to London.

I had a hundred reasons why picking up my live and moving it across the ocean was a bad idea. But I had one really good one. It felt right. 

I haven’t written publicly in a long time and that was on purpose. The last 4 years have been a roller coaster of emotions and happenings. Too many to discuss here and also, I don’t want or need to discuss them, they are mine and I’ll keep them to myself. But I will summarise a bit to bring you up to speed. Everything hurt and I was more alone than I’ve ever been. Thought that was bad but it turned out to be the best blessing I could have been given. Out of that pain I achieved some dreams and was forced to do things I never wanted to do. I lost some friends, but found the best one I’ve ever had. Me. 

I became real and vividly discovered all the aspects of my life that had been forced or faked. When there is no one left to act for you quickly wonder why you ever did that at all. I discovered that I loved my job and realised that even though it isn’t always obvious, what I do helps people. I realised I loved coaching runners and watching people work hard to achieve their goals. Simply put, I enjoy being a help to others. All my searching for other careers or passions was really an attempt to find that happiness I get from seeing others happy. I stopped searching for that in a million different ways and concentrated on making it happen through the things I’m good at. Do what you love and keep it simple. 

The last year has been the most content I’ve ever been. And I have never been content. Ive spent so much time ‘looking’ for contentment. I’ve spent so many years wavering, never been satisfied with anything. At some point, subconsciously, I just stopped looking and realised contentment was inside me. It was in my job. It was in my kids. It was in a weekend spent by myself running, having coffee, traveling, and just sitting with Willie. I could go to bed at 6 PM on a Saturday night and pull the covers over my head and watch a Civil War documentary or a Quantum Physics lecture and not feel like I was missing out on something better. That’s what I wanted and it was enough. I wish I could point to the moment I found it but I can’t. Sometime along the way it just happened and I looked around and realised everything I was doing made me happy and I could easily say no to the things that didn’t. That burning desire to always find the next thing that might satisfy my passion was gone. But gone isn’t the right word. It’s more that I had it. I had the passion. 
So I had my insides in order and my plane ticket to leave 2 weeks later. I had a house, a dog, a car, kids, and a million other things to worry about. But somehow I knew things would work out. I didn’t stress about those things. Ok, that’s maybe a lie, I did stress about starting a new job with people I didn’t know. But I didn’t freak out about how things would get by at home. I told the kids and they were both excited. My oldest son planned to move into my house and take care of it and willie. My youngest would come over to England once school was out. Everything fell into place quickly and easily. I knew this was right. It was to be my next chapter in life and maybe it was happening because I was now ready for it. I am the person I want to be and I am to be where I want to be. 

So here I sit looking out over the English Channel with a centuries old church behind me. It’s a beautiful sunny day and sailboats are coming in and going out of the harbour where I live now. We’re in the middle of a pandemic but the footpaths along the shore are full of people holding hands and just being outside. My new boss made me homemade bagels this morning and I ate them with some espresso while sitting on the waterfront quietly watching the waves roll in and out. I’m here for at least a year and am excited about all the travel I’m going to do once this pandemic passes. There are a million trails through old forests that I long to run and hundreds of new friends I haven’t met you. I’m completely alone but I’ve never felt so full and connected. 

Thanks for listening

Wouldn't it

Wouldn't it be nice if someone or something could tell us we're going to regret what we're about to do?
Makes me understand the anguish that motivated poets and songwriters since the beginning of time.
One good psychic could have prevent it all. But then again what would we read?

Thanks for listening

This day many years ago

Little moments change the world. Ask a simple question and see how the world can change.

Supplication

The hardest thing to accept is something someone wants so badly to give you because it's unearned. I was taught, and I have learned through life lessons, that you must work for everything good or at the very least suffer for it. That is a truth that's proven in the history of every great person I admire.
It's also always been an admirable thing. People admire and appreciate those that work hard and refuse to accept handouts. Rugged individualism is the foundation of America and I've aspired to live up to that expectation.
I spent most of my earlier life pursuing the dream of achieving a career I really don't deserve given my birthplace and intelligence. I relished in the act of overachieving by working harder than most. It's what I was supposed to do and it gave me purpose. I achieved my goal and have a nice career to show for it.
Somewhere over the last few years, while I was working a job that I wanted so badly for so long, someone changed the rules of the game or maybe I switched games and brought the wrong skill set. Once the career is set what's left? Like so many middle aged fools before me I put my nose to a grindstone and drank the CoolAide that everything must be earned only to realize after so many years that the things I really want, the things that truly soothe my soul, can't be earned. They have to be accepted as gifts. I think I know now why some people become bitter in their old age. They're feet are cemented in a believe that self-reliance leads to happiness. Seeing, but refusing to accept, the things that bring the rainbow in their soul because they can't be earned and how can anything good be unearned, right?
It takes amazing courage to step out of old paradigms and truly follow your heart. It's scary as hell even though your heart is screaming MY GOD MAN! CAN'T YOU SEE HOW GREAT THIS IS? Head vs. Heart I suppose. It's that fear that makes it so rare for some to actually do it. It's also that fear that makes the reward so great when someone actually does leave the past behind and start a new way of thinking and living.

Thank for listening

Today

Today is, and always will be, a great day.

Total Cliche

So really a marathon isn't about the destination. Hell, you usually end up right where you began so it has to be about the journey. And if you stop along the way because you're tired of the trip then you have failed. No matter how beautiful the sight or happy something makes you, you should always keep going. Actually looking for the hurt to continue because you know the reward is great at the end. There is no cliche ending in the real world. It's about the journey not the nice story that has a predictable ending.

The man I'll be

Someday has become an interesting concept for me. It lies out there beckoning but it never arrives. It just lies out there in the future happily taking on all my ideas, hopes, and dreams. But I never get, or have, to actually meet it.
All I've ever wanted, was to love you and somewhere deep inside me I still do. But it's time I stop believe that you're ever going to change. That man out in the future; that man who lives in someday is the man I love.
Someday I'll be the man I want to be
The man who is stable and dependable.
The man who sets goals and achieves them.
The man who desires more the love of small things than love as a thing.
Someday I'll travel the world by myself and write my stories.
Someday I'll maintain a stable emotional state and stop the roller coaster in my mind.
The man I will be is amazing! Perfect in every way that matters to everyone in my life that matters.
I took her by the arm and said don't leave me. Just give me time I'll be the man you've needed.
The time remaining to do this is running short. The runway ahead is growing short and the space behind is long and littered with debris from the man I don't want to be.
If you wait around awhile I'll make you fall for me.
That man who lives out there, the foreshadow of who I am today, will give you exactly what you need. He can sweep you off your feet with his words. He is charming and endearing. He will walk the world for you and never miss a step. He seeks challenges and methodically beats them down until the mountain they appeared to be is nothing but a molehill. He lives just beyond my reach and I've only touched him during a few momentary affairs when I was broken and off track and had nothing and nowhere to go. I lived those moments like real life dreams. I floated over this life and become the things I wanted to be because the chains of fear, anxiety, responsibility, had been broken if for only a moment. Eventually I woke from the dream and put my chains on again though. Feeling guilty for having taken them off. During those times I was that man. I was someday.
Thanks for listening

A thought

When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves. – Viktor E. Frankl

Wind, trees, change

Things do not change; we change. Thoreau.

Standing in the woods today as the wind blew strong against the trees, some alive and some already dead but still pushing back against each blow, I couldn't help but think how our brains, or at least mine, are afloat on a wind of thoughts that blow in both good and horrible thoughts. I supposed the great question for today was whether to let ourselves go where that mental wind blows or to stand strong against the gale and remain firm in our position like the trees. 
The past is firmly fixed like the trees. Memories are there. Unchangeable in fact. Miles run are miles in the book. Yes, it can wear with time and become blurry, but in the truest terms of fact, what happened is written in time. My brain sometimes blows against them and tries to move good ones into painful ones and painful ones into obscurity and I suppose that's similar to living trees that provide shade and protection and the dead trees that only take up space and provide nothing of value. 

The future, or our plans, are by nature unfixed. We see our goals ahead of us and we chase them with a passion built in the present. But when we catch them we are sometimes not who we were when we began the chase and the goal ahead becomes fluid. So no matter how solidly we paint the picture of the future it can never be anything but unknown. And that can be scary if we let our minds blow that way. 

I have intentionally refused to write about my Boston qualification because I don't know what to feel about it. This goal, so amazing and glamorous that I would chase it for 10 years, became less than monumental less than a day after it was realized. When it was the future, a plan, a goal, I had a picture of how it would be to achieve it. I'd train hard and throw myself into it with the full support of the people I loved and who loved me. That sublime scene, painted on the canvas of my mind for years, was me finally throwing my full weight into pushing that stone up and over the hill, standing on top, glowing like the Oklahoma sunrise, feeling a self worth previously unbeknownst to me. I'd be that guy I always dreamed of becoming. It wasn't so much achieving it that would give me that feeling as much as putting in the work needed to achieve it. 
Crossing the line seeing the clock read 3 hours and 14 minutes felt so good. For a moment. Then I looked around and the first thing I noticed was how different the scene was in reality compared to how it had hung on the wall of my mind for all those years. The things that I lost, and the things I found, on the way to achieving it played heavily on my mind and I cried sobbing, uncontrollable tears of joy and pain. It took me a long time to pull myself together at that finish line. I'm honestly not sure I actually did pull everything together. I left so many things on that course and in those final inches. They fell out of me uncontrollably and I couldn't gather them all back into my heart because they scattered once they were free. And now I still struggle, wondering if I should have held them firm inside me against the winds of change or is it OK that they blew away? My future became my past, being now for only a few moments, and now neither seem recognizable to me. 
Truth is, I now feel very little about accomplishing the goal. It just doesn't hold the consequence I supposed it would. It just happened. My feelings about it now are that I'd like to run it again, not to achieve a goal but because it felt so damn good running that like I did!  A conservative runner by nature, normally putting in conservative miles early with the hope of saving my energy for the later miles, in this race I rejected that old way and put my cards on the table in the first mile. Fuck it, I told myself, if you're going to do this you have to run each mile as if it's the final mile of the race and each mile split is the goal time. Throwing myself across the buzzing of my watch like the final 100 meters. It was a mental game and a fight against the fear that resides in the next mile. There was no next mile. Only this mile I was running. I might fall off the pace but that was in the future and couldn't be considered. I ran this mile. And then the following mile. There was no future because it was unknown and full of fear for me. Then couldn't exist in the now; there wasn't room. The miles gone by were fixed and done and there was no future. It was the most free my soul has ever been.

Although my 10 year dream didn't materialize in the way I had envisioned, It taught me to embrace a new way of honoring the present with my best effort and keeping my sail filled with the positive mental wind that's blowing now. Let it push my boat away from the safety of the conservative shore of the past and not to worry about whether it will be there to bring me back. The trees on that shore are dead anyway. Enjoy the breeze in my face and the sun in my hair because that's all there is. 

The reality is that my goal didn't change, I changed.

Thanks for listening

Christmas Eve

The smallest ember of hurt, landing upon the strongest bond can grow. Fed by mis, or no, communication and misunderstanding it turns the bond into fuel and sprouts a flame. Fed by fear the flame erupts into a fire spurring anger and hate until it becomes the funeral pyre of the bond.
This year has wrought so many things that spur our divisions. More anger, more hate, more fear is not the solution to any problem.
We're brothers and sisters in humanity at our core. Whatever ember fell on us this year please remember that all the things that divide us are only shadows cast on our view by the fire that started long ago by a small ember of hurt. You can look beyond the shadows for the bond that's still there if you will only try.
Person to person, race to race, community to community, country to country, it doesn't matter how small the first drop of understanding is that you put on the ember. Every ocean is filled with small drops.
Here's to hoping 2017 is a waterfall.

Just Run

Well folks we're down to it. The Tucson marathon is tomorrow where I'll try to finally qualify for Boston. I've done all the training. I hit every goal and made every run. There's nothing left to do now but run.
It's kinda fitting that I find myself in this position in my running life at this moment in time. I've done all I can do and now all I have left to do is run. No more effort or thought is needed or even could be beneficial. I've reached that point where it's time to stop training and planning and just do. Do what needs to be done and move through this point to the other side. I'll either qualify or I won't but I can't stay here on this side of trying any longer.
I'm surprisingly calm about it.
I'll move through this and see what's on the other side knowing that I can't control most of what happens. I'll put what I have out there for the world to see and find out how my hand plays against the house. This is not at all how I pictured this challenge would play out but if I've learned anything over the last months it's that I shouldn't try to control anything. When I do try it makes things much worse than I could ever imagine. So I'll let the universe play this one out and let things come and go; let people play their part on the stage, and try to enjoy the show. My next scene begins with the marathon tomorrow and the script isn't known to me but I've rehearsed in the best way I know how.

See you on the other side.

Thanks for listening.

A moment

Just a quick note to mark today as special. Tonight my youngest came into my room and asked me to show him how to shave. It's a small thing, but it meant so much to me. I love that boy more than I have capacity to love. He fills up my soul when I think about him. When we connect through these little moments it makes me so happy because, unlike when he was a baby and I could hold him and love him, now we are sharing things like this instead of me just loving him from one side. He can now interact with me in these small ways and give me tiny pieces of his life and memories. I love that.
Thanks for listening

Accomplishing a goal and the puzzle

When I was in high school I ran cross country and loved it. I loved running through the woods but it helped that I was pretty good at it too. I could easily run in the 18 minute range for the 3 mile course. Stretching out the legs and feeling the rush of running quickly over the rough terrain made me feel like I was flying. I kept running after high school but somewhere along the way I lost the speed that I used to have back then. It became extremely challenging to run a 5K anywhere near 20 minutes let alone 18. I found that I was OK with my slower pace if I ran longer because accomplishing the longer distances gave me a similar sense of satisfaction as did running fast back in my youth. I suppose that means I was only chasing some sort of self-satisfaction and using running to give it to me buy hey, I was young and could have been chasing it with other things right?
Although I was content with running longer distance in place of running fast, I always kept an internal goal of one day breaking 20 minutes in the 5K. I wasn’t planning to train for a 5K but hoped that my marathon training would allow me to accomplish the 5K goal while seeking a marathon goal. Turns out I may have been right for the first time in my life! Hey, even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then. ☺
At the Edmond turkey trot on Thanksgiving I ran the 5K in 19:42. This is the fastest time I’ve run for a 5K since I was 18.
Since I haven’t been training for a 5K I didn’t anticipate accomplishing this goal so I didn’t have any stress about the race beforehand. The weather was near perfect running weather although a little cold for my tastes. I, of course, screwed up my watch at the starting line and put it in cycling mode instead of running mode so I only had speed and total time to measure my progress during the race. Since I can’t run and do math at the same time, I gave up looking at it. It wasn’t until I turned the final corner and saw the clock that I realized I was going to break 20 minutes. My heart just about came out of my chest! I had struggled most of the race to keep pace and that pace didn’t seem all that fast but here I was about to accomplish a long-time goal!
It’s funny how uneventful accomplishing a goal can be. When I crossed the finish line my insides were cheering and so excited but on the outside I was just another runner. Although I was completely relieved, excited, happy, and a million other positive emotions, my only thought was how weird it is to have accomplished this goal but to have lost the life that I had when I started thinking about it. It didn't make me sad so much as it frustrated me to think that when I put the goal in my head I had people around me who I motivated me to seek this goal but by the time I actually accomplish it those people are gone. It just seemed like the puzzle wasn’t complete even though I had finally got those last difficult middle pieces to fit. I’d finally fit those pieces that you can’t fit together without putting most of the other pieces in place first and when I stepped back to look at the finished picture I realized I’d lost the corners.
On the positive side, I also realized that I didn’t NEED to have someone there in order to feel good about this accomplishment. I enjoyed the success in my own way and within my own skin. The feelings were all positive and I was able to feel the satisfaction on my own. That’s a big step forward from me and I have to wonder if the changes that brought about this new self-awareness aren’t, at their root, the same changes that led to accomplishing the running goal. I also have a large group of new, wonderful, friends who were there and so excited to know I'd done this thing. They truly cared and made the day wonderful.
You can't expect to keep the world the same forever. Things change, we change, hell the universe is constantly expanding at a phenomenal rate! There's no reason we should ever expect to be in the same space for long. But we set out on long journeys anyway. We take the motivation from the space we're in presently and use it to move forward knowing (or at least finding out) that that space might not be the same when we arrive. Sometimes it hurts a little or a lot, but if we thought about it for more than a second, we'd realize that we wouldn't be adventuring if our hearts wanted to be in the same space. The itch that made us seek something distant, or hard, doesn't really want us to end up in the same space we left.
Thanks for listening
 

Reinventing I

I’m pessimistic and I doubt myself a lot. There, I said it. I hate that it’s true but I don’t want to live that way anymore so it’s important to say it. While I’m sure my doubts and fears are significantly different from yours, I’m also sure we all have a bit of self-doubt lingering somewhere just beneath the surface. It usually rises to the surface when we are presented with a challenge where our hearts say “Go for it!” but our heads say “Holy crap that looks hard!”

Neuroscientists are discovering that our subconscious mind controls a large portion (some say up to 90 %!) of our actions. This subconscious reaction is our brain’s way of giving us quick responses and alleviating our conscious mind of having to make every decision. Our conscious minds require significantly more energy to operate than the subconscious so this is also a way in which this amazingly complex and efficient body of ours conserves energy. Over the course of our lives, our subconscious mind learns from how we react to certain situations and stores this away. Eventually it uses this stored information to automatically react to similar situations without us having to actually process what’s happening. Usually this stored information is negative and our subconscious learns to react in ways to protect us from the experiencing that pain or failure again. The sad reality is that when we reach a certain age we can become more automatic than conscious. We can become a machine, driven more by our past experience, who isn’t actually experiencing the world today as much as reacting to it. 

That’s the reason we are so often afraid to take on new challenges or to push ourselves beyond what’s comfortable. We see something that excites our conscious mind but that’s the moment when that subconscious monster of doubt, grown and cultivated over the years by our bad experiences and failures, takes over and wipes away the dream without us even really knowing it. We are able to get a glimpse through the crack in the door but it’s immediately slammed shut and we remain in our safe room of mental comfort where we can’t experience failure or pain but also can’t grow.

I’m making this sound like our bodies are out to keep us down and hurt us and that’s not the case. This process is the amazing way we stay safe and stay alive. It’s the most fantastic creation on this planet! You have a body that works to keep you alive and safe without much thought on your part. But in its focus on those goals, it can, if we allow it, squelch the rest of our amazing gifts and talents, sacrificing them for safety. 

The great thing is that we can control and/or change our subconscious! It’s still learning, even in my extremely old age. We have the power to take control of our conscious mind when presented with a challenge and cage that monster of self-doubt. We can not only cage him, we can teach him a new automatic response! It’s not easy and he will fight, remember he’s been learning our old ways since we were born, but we can change our automatic, fear based reactions and step up to new things and challenges. All it takes is to become aware of our actions, understand if they are truly coming from our heart or our head, and when possible, follow the heart instead of head. It’ll be scary and we’ll probably fail at new things for a while but that’s OK because where you can fail you can also succeed! You can’t have the brilliant joy of victory without the risk of failure. You’ll also realize that failure really isn’t that bad anyway, your mind just makes it look that way when you let it think about it.

I’ve had a dream of qualifying for the Boston marathon for many years. The qualifying time for me is extremely challenging based on what I normally run so I’ve always put that dream in the category of unachievable. Well now I’m making a run at it. I realized my view of this challenge was based on how I’d performed in the past which was limiting my ability to see how good I could be in the future. I’m fighting that automatic response that says I can’t run that fast and committing myself to the training. I might fail. I might succeed. I know I’ll be better for having taken control of the situation and not let my past define my future. 

Get out there and find out how good you can be too. 

All I needed was a run

I thought I was loosing it. I thought I was backsliding.

I have been learning so much about myself and moving forward in a good direction. It's not been a fun journey or one that I would recommend doing often, but it is necessary and I'm grateful that things worked out to give me this opportunity to grow. 

Along the way I've regressed more times than I can remember but I have wonderful friends who I can lean on when I need a crutch. Again, so grateful for all the players in this situation.

Yesterday I had one of those frightful days when the floodgates of fear opened and I wasn't strong enough to hold it back. It scared me not only because of the waves of fear and anxiety that came and never seemed to end, but because I thought I was passed this. I thought I had put this kind of irrational emotion behind me. I was caught completely off guard and, of course, spent way too much time trying to analyze it and figure out, well basically WTF??

Then I went for a run tonight. A really hard interval run. In the beginning I was still fighting the fear and anxiety. As I pushed myself faster and faster, I found that my mind settled, my fear turned to calm. As I continued with the workout I found myself actually finding some confidence and emotional strength. The kind I'd had before yesterday. It wasn't gone! Then I realized that I hadn't run since Saturday and had let my diet fall to shit. I had a stomach bug on Monday and spent the day in bed. Basically I had become seditary. I hadn't given my body or spirit what it needed and the result was a fall into all the worst my mind could conjure up. There was nothing keeping me from falling. 

This happens on a smaller scale in good times and it manifests as laziness and fatigue. In my current state it had ample fodder to build into an emotional storm of midwest spring magnitude. 

Pushing the body and keeping it from getting down is more than just a physical need. For me it also keeps the soul stable. I need to remember this.

Thanks for listening.

Lesson learned again

Everything in moderation.
That's a wonderful saying and I try to live it but sometimes life gets in the way. I've got a million things going on right now and I want to get them all done RIGHT NOW! So, in typical Willie fashion, I've worked myself into a frenzy that has ended with sickness. I've run myself down to the point where I had to spend a whole day in bed yesterday feeling completely horrible and nauseous. The sickness was bad enough but the frustration of not being able to work on any projects or even go to work made it even worse. Add to this the fear that I'd lose a week of BQ training and I was a complete mess!
Luckily it last only a day and I'm feeling much better today. Being forced to rest also forced me to, once again, see how I had lost sight of how important balance and patience are in life. It would be nice if I could learn this lesson once and not have to be forced to learn it over and over.
Becoming focused only on finishing everything makes me miss the joy of the journey. The end result should be a motivation but it can't be where I focus all my attention. Staying present in the current moment and paying attention to the details of what needs to be done now is how we finish races and how we enjoy life to the fullest. One thing, one race, one mile, one step at a time.
I've got two killer workouts on the schedule this week so I need to get one more day of good rest ad make sure I'm over this sickness. I'm getting into the real meat of this BQ training plan so from here on the workouts look a challenging. Here are the description from my coach.
Workout #1
So, we'll run an 800 around 3:15. Take 1:00 rest and go right into a mile at 7:26 pace. Then take 1:00 rest and do it again until we have run six 800's and six miles. It's a high volume workout that will require patience early.
Workout #2
Our second session will be a Long Run Workout during the weekend. I just want a good, fast finish 20 miler. The first 10 miles need to be easy, casual running. Then the last 10 miles I would like to try and be at 7:45 or better.

Until now, most of the workouts have been things I could do. They weren't comfortable, but I felt I could do them. This week's runs will test my ability to push beyond what I think I can do. It's scary and exciting all at the same time. I need to push everything else out of my mind and make time for these workouts if I can because I won't be able to just "get them done". It's going to take focus. A focus on the present and what needs to happen now. Something with which I obviously struggle.
I'll let you know how these go.

Thanks for listening