April 7th, 2012: I am really on one. I am fired up and rolling. I lost a whole pound! One whole fucking pound! Seems like it’s been a month since I’ve lost weight two days in a row. It is – as they say – what it is. I won’t stress because I know my fitness level is improving so much. I’m taking this weight eddy/holding pattern, again, just for what it is and what it’s done for me. What it has done for me is make me concentrate on exercising harder.
I went to my son’s tennis match yesterday, which was more important than getting my normal 5 p.m. weekday workout in. We didn’t get home until about 7:30 p.m. On the way home I began to think about the world in which I’ve created for myself – a world where whether I want something or not sometimes doesn’t matter – I have to do what I’m supposed to do, what I planned to do a long time ago. So I said unto myself: “Hey bitch-ass, there’s still plenty of daylight left. Get out there and do your roadwork.”
So I ran 3 miles. I didn’t jog three miles, I ran 3 miles. 10 minutes per mile. That is running to me! There is a subdivision of high-end homes off the country road where I run. My route takes me right through them. Someone, or maybe more than one person, was BBQ-ing, as it was a fine-weather evening. Last spring this would have either made me sad if I was trying to lose weight, or it would have made me go home and have my own BBQ. To the extreme. But extreme is me, so how did I take it last night? I sped up. It was so motivating to me. Those smells merely made me push harder, and remind myself that this is my time to be champion. It seemed like my feet weren’t even touching the ground! From now on, I will choose when those smells will make me salivate. And I will choose when those smells will just give me Nitro Power! I will not fall victim to letting someone else’s BBQ ruin my plans. And those last 3 sentences were both literal and metaphoric.
Now, as I write this, it’s snowing here again. What the hell!? There is at least 2-3 inches on the ground, but it was shorts and tank-tops yesterday. I love Idaho, but I don’t love Idaho this time of year when you never know what the hell you’re gonna get for weather over the course of a day.
Therefore, my daydream is based purely on time and money, so for awhile it will just remain a daydream. Here it is: I am just arriving in Tampa, FL. It is March 1st and from now on I am going to spend every March through May in Tampa or St. Petersburg, training for half-marathons or marathons or maybe even triathlons. What a bad-ass daydream that is, eh?
April 7th, 2020: I’ve learned that if something fucks with me to the point that it backs me into a corner and I have no other choice but to fight, I know I have to come outta that corner hard and bring all hell with me. I have to attack head-on, from the flanks, from behind, and from the swing zones. If I’m getting my ass kicked, I’ve learned that to stop anything short of nuclear is just asking for the problem to return to haunt me later.
I had a boxing coach once tell me that if I can, I should deliver a beating to the other guy so bad that a rematch with me is far too unappealing to legitimately consider. I couldn’t consistently do that in boxing of course (although I gave an honest try every time), but I have a decent track record of metaphorically doing as such to some of the opponents life has stood up in front of me.
Once I’m done, I’m done, man. I despise dealing with the same issue, problem, person, situation, etc. if at one time him/her/it caused me so much anxiety and/or heartache. So I pull out all the resources available to me.
When life thinks it can play little stress games with me, the lead photo to today’s blog entry at the top there is my first salvo of ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads. An unforgiving minute, as Rudyard Kipling might say, is best filled with 60-seconds of distance run. I’ll pull that card every time I possibly can, because it’s difficult to think about much other than trying to survive when you’re moving your body just as fast as you can toward the fire instead of away from it. This is when the stress of the everyday world just doesn’t have enough oxygen to exist.
And also, a Florida beach is always there to help put the nails in the coffin of that stress. Can’t forget that!
