Going All In

My senior track season hasn’t been off to the start I hoped. I’ve been doing all the training, hitting all the times, eating right, getting enough sleep, and doing extra stretching, but it’s not working. I’m once again running times I ran in high school. What’s worse, if I ran a fast time right now I would be surprised, when fast times are supposed to be expected.

There’s good news to all this: I’ve been training since May (May of 2016, to be more accurate). I’m in great shape. I have a tremendous body of work under my feet, and that’s not going away any time soon. I just need some fine tuning, some speed work, some extra drills, some hardening of my body and my mind. That means extra hours, extra lifts, extra stretching, the list goes on. That means deep meditations, focussed recovery sessions, and more room for sleep than school work. None of that will come easy.

I’m going to have to start really pushing myself, but pushing without the fear of getting injured or burning out. Those two fears have paralyzed me up to this point in my track career: I don’t want to over work and get hurt again, and I don’t want to overwork and burn out again. With all due respect, fuck that. I’m ready to actually chase my goals, to get my mind right, and to push myself to the brink of exhaustion each day to reach my goals. I’m ready for early mornings and 3 lifts a week. I’m ready to work so hard that those desired times are expected each time I toe the line.

Never a surprise.

What’s the worst case scenario of giving these next three months my absolute best? I get injured or I burn out and I never run another good race. I let my team and myself down. I feel regret for not having done more.

Guess what: I already feel that. If I get injured or burn out because of this pursuit, I can recover in May. Then at least I will know it wasn’t meant to be. There is literally nothing to lose.

This is battle cry. I will not back down. I will fight until the very end. This is all part of the story.

Hoka fucking hey!

Past the Threshold

You know the moment—the “what did I get myself into” moment. The “this was a terrible idea” moment. The “not today” moment. It’s ubiquitous because you and I are hard wired to seek comfort.

I feel this pain of indecision every time I go to get in an ice bath. Then, every time, I turn my brain off and jump right in, up to my neck. Immediately my body curses me, wondering why I put myself through this suffering week after week. Today, I was in the tub for thirty seconds and my brain was still trying to pull me out. I actually felt my body start to make a move for the exit, but I reeled it back in and breathed deep. I’ve made it through much worse than five minutes of cold water.

Nobody fully understands the power of the human mind. Its influence is evasive yet supple, able to be changed on an instant but rock solid in neurologic programming. Many people believe that our decisions are just a complex series of electrical and chemical processes, shaped by our environments, upbringing, and the current environment. They think the brain is destined to make one decision over another.

But there’s one thing I’ve learned from my life experience: the mind can be trained.

Whether it’s telling yourself that you will finish this workout, last five minutes in the cold, or stay away from sugar this week, the mind is capable of a lot. Most importantly, it’s capable of moving you past the threshold of pain into the arena of choice. Your mind offers you freedom by granting you access to a world of potentiality, one few people know exists. But it has to be trained; it cannot only be subject to the soft world we live in.

Harden your mind by doing difficult things. You will be better because of it.

Improvise

Tonight in my Perspectives in Leadership class the Improv Team came and lead us through some improv games. We learned how to think differently, how to set people up for success, and how to understand that others probably don’t see situations the way we do. It was an interesting and meaningful tie-in with leadership.

One perspective shared was “life is improv.” This means two things: that we shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously and that we should allow ourselves to fail. I like this perspective. Being serious is a trap. It sucks the joy out of life. Instead, we should play more and be grateful for our falls, scraped knees, and dirty hands. This world is our playground and we should treat it as such (so long as we clean up after ourselves).

In Matthew 18:3, Jesus says: “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.” And in Luke 17:21, Jesus says: “…nor will they say ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For behold, the kingdom of heaven is in your midst.”

So the kingdom of heaven is in my midst. That means it’s here. And I can’t enter the kingdom unless I become like a child—more open, not so serious, and innocent. This means if I become like a child and play more, I can experience the kingdom of heaven here, now.

Time to stop being so serious.

Victory because of Defeat

Today was another one of those days. I woke up sick, still fighting off a GI bug. Today featured a fever. I’m okay with the concept of having an illness but I’m really not good at letting it run its course. I’m better at acting than allowing myself to recover and heal. It’s something I’ll have to work at.

Usually I find a way to allow my bad day to affect somebody else. This is not a good strategy. It leaves me full of regret and always apologizing for being a jerk. But today was different. I kept my bad day to myself and didn’t hurt anybody. When I realized this, my day instantly got better. No longer was today filled with defeats and pitfalls – it was a day of victory.

We don’t have to suffer defeat in order to be victorious. If we do, it just makes it a lot sweeter.

Every Tool is a Hammer?

After 8 weeks of the wettest June and July in Philadelphia history, my girlfriend’s front lawn was still unmoved. Grass and weeds rose to 2 feet about the ground. I decided to take matters into my own hands with my trust electric weed whacker, gifted to me by my grandparents (they no longer needed it). So I took the shield off and weed whacked all the way through…about five square feet. The battery wasn’t very powerful.

Needless to say, this method was ineffective. Luckily my dad had a spare push mower in the shed (that’s right, old school), so I gave that a shot this morning. It worked well until I hit a branch. There were only about 100 branches, and I had to go over each strip in both directions, so the 25 square foot front lawn only took me 40 minutes. Not much better.

What did I learn from this? Well, as Adam Savage (the guy from Myth Busters) says, “Every tool is a hammer.” A hammer probably would’ve worked better than both of my lawn mowing tools.

Next time I’ll choose the right tool for the job.