Chapters

After nearly three years of battling injuries, you just have to stop and ask yourself,"What aren't you doing?"  I asked myself that very question towards the end of 2013 and made a decision not to run for 8 weeks straight and just focus on everything else.  There's a reason why my body continues to fall trap to never making forward progress and getting back to the shape I was in during the 2011 running season, which seems so long ago now.  It wasn't just about running, this is a metaphor for many things in life for me.

"All of us every single year, we're a different person. I don't think we're the same person all our lives." -- Stephen Spielberg

That's been my problem all along, not realizing that every single year I will be different.  I don't embrace the possibility of change and flow with the energy it can posses. I revert, I control, I lay in wait for the same efforts, same perspective to shape me.  I took 13 weeks before the end of the year to be "different", take a new "approach", find my peace and banish the darkness within as well as heal physically.  In some ways I found light, but it's a continuous process.

It was harder and easier in different ways throughout the hours, days, and weeks that concluded 2013 for me.  I've never been so challenged by myself before in my entire life. Yet, I still find myself challenged, I've not found the correct "rhythm" of life to feel good more consistently across my various dimensions. It's a struggle.

I tell myself it's hard to maintain momentum and focus over many weeks, I get distracted. Those early days felt good.  I was rejuvenated.  My knee more or less stopped hurting, I started to see changes physically that I hadn't seen in my body since 2001.  I kept reminding myself, "I am not my age, I am not my age!"  I focused on how I felt across all my dimensions.

Targeted inner focus requires visualization of what you want to happen on any given day, so I told myself a little story:

I wake, the morning sun is still below the horizon, the darkness outside is still deep and quiet, there is no escape. I either draw the sheets up and descend into my own warm, sleepy daze or find resolve to venture forth and dare challenge my soul.  Today, I stand up and find my footing. I stand tall, my inner being is at peace, the congestion that was yesterday is behind me, the day in front of me is fresh and new, full of promise. I smile. That's me, I smile because I continue to discover myself even after 40 years or so I think, there is nothing certain in life, except for change.

It's not so easy though, injuries have a way of breaking you down. Each day...it's a little harder, depending on the day and my soul.   F-it, I am, who I am.

On a whim, I went to Phoenix in January to cheer some buds during Rock n' Roll Marathon and ended up running the damn thing, not before signing up for a once in a lifetime opportunity to run "Comrades Marathon" a 90k race in South Africa in June with all of them. 

I ran the Surf City Half Marathon with my brother in February, his return to running after 12 years.  I am proud of him for the dedication he exhibited and his performance that day.

Acceptance?  Realization?  Hope?  Promise?  Fortitude?  Surrender?  All of those things...I am and I will.

I am honestly, and perhaps for the first time looking at my existence on this planet and what it means with a new perspective.  This involves many questions.  Mid-life crisis, maybe.  In the end, I've arrived at a place where I believe if I don't ask those questions of myself, I will stagnate.  So I press on.  It's like sitting in the ocean on a surfboard, among the heaviest kelp bed you've seen, being pulled in all directions as the ocean moves beneath you, while trying to just position yourself for the next set of waves, like the next step in your life. 

Do you want to carry the weight of the past or do you want to release it and be FREE?  I want to be FREE!  Running Free...I am, who I am...So I am here.  Living.  Living as I know it.  Extending myself in ways yet incomprehensible, but that's okay.  I am.  I traveled to California yet again and found a new band of brothers in Solvang, CA for a ride of a lifetime.

It's been nearly 14 years since I rode over 100 miles on one ride.  This was a test of sorts for me.  But what I found wasn't just inside but the camaraderie of a merry band of gentlemen on a chilly morning to start a whole new adventure. I dropped off after mile 65, to ride my tranquil self-reflective 35 miles to the finish.  But those first 65 miles, were AWESOME!  No man left behind, a group/team effort to gather and push everyone to the end. I quickly found in the group a nondescript, total acceptance of our existence together.  Bonds were forged and in the aftermath, I found people I will always consider "friends".
That is life.  Human to human.  The sentient beings of this planet finding ourselves and one another to celebrate life, a life worth living, together.  I am grateful for my recent experiences.  They have spurred me on to find more.  I will continue to re-discover the space among the pillars of my soul and in fact, I am finding new pillars and new spaces to explore.

More recently, as I wrote this post awhile ago, too many people I know have been stricken with some form of cancer.  I don't understand it, comprehension fully eludes me.  It makes all this and me feel small, inconsequential, my concerns in the world; what bigger, more pressing matters should I focus on?  It makes me want to love life and everyone in it with abandon, no regret, no apology.  Every day is a gift.

It's now April and this post has stagnated for a couple months...there continues to be promise and growth in various dimensions, while still experiencing setbacks of sorts.  My character has been tested, I look forward to further growth in spaces I know and the spaces I have yet to find.

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved." -- Helen Keller