Since I last posted I've dropped a lot of weight. I'm down to around 215 or so and feeling great. I've competed in a Warrior Dash and a 73 mile bicycle race. I'm running 5 to 6 days a week and have scheduled a list of upcoming races in which I'll participate. I'm hooked!
I've also been reading quite a bit lately, for me anyway. I'm usually too antsy to read, or, maybe more accurately, most of what I find fails to divert my attention from the television, fridge, you name it.
The books I've read recently are all about human achievement, all personal, physical achievement. The recurring theme is that comfort and ease are not the seeds of happiness or fulfillment. Those come from struggle, pain and uncertainty.
Like I tell my lazy students, you are what you do. If you do nothing, what are you? What do you have, what do you do for others? What is your worth here on earth? Before them is a challenge, an opportunity. Yes, it will be a struggle, but that's what it takes to grow.
A clever George Lucas quote I read recently says something along the lines of, "We're all trapped in a cage with the door wide open."
Ok, back to results. I've been diligent in diet, changing eating habits and really have lost the taste for many things I used to eat. They're just not appealing anymore. I now crave apples (never like 'em before), watermelon, beans and fish. Crazy!
Now, save the past two weekends, I've pretty much cut out all beer consumption. There's been cause for celebration lately with the completion of the Warrior Dash, pictured below. I ran it with a torn hamstring in a pair of water socks from wal-mart and finished 69th in my age group (out of almost 700)! Here's a picture:
Two weeks previously I raced in The Tour of the Tucson Mountains, two weeks to the day after tearing the hamstring. I had a goal time of 5 hours. I completed it in 3:45! I was done before my family had arrived at the finish line to cheer me on.
That race was an incredibly emotionally draining experience. With about 5 miles to go my injured leg cramped and I couldn't move. Until that point I was focused on riding with the group I was in, focusing on my form and so on. After the cramp I had to coast for a long while, then I could finally pedal slowly. It gave me time to reflect on the past 9 months. How much I'd changed, how much I'd lost, how much I'd gained. And I got to think about, "Why?"
The answer that came to me...
Now in the previous two pictures I had died my beard red for a beard contest that I didn't win. Since then I'm clean chinned...first time in 16 years!
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