Success comes before work?

“The dictionary is the only place that success comes before work. Hard work is the price we must pay for success. I think you can accomplish anything if you’re willing to pay the price.” – Vince Lombardi

This is so true!  Another true statement is every journey requires a first step. Sometimes it’s small, simply a toe-dip into cold water. Other times, people make leaps, throwing caution to the wind and taking several chances (and get setback from an injury). Either way, that first step is by far the greatest one.  But then there is a second step, a third step and so on…  They are all a challenge!

The problem I have with picking a goal and sticking to it isn’t taking that first step.  It’s the steps long after that first step. I find it easy to start a new routine, goal and activity.  It is week two and beyond when I let everything I can make up get in the way.   Success takes work!  There is no magic pill.

The mind makes choices we direct it to make.  To explain, picture yourself alone in your home, sitting on the couch, watching your favorite game or TV show after running a marathon, 50 mile or 100 mile race.  You are so sore you have a hard time moving. Suddenly, you realize you’ve forgotten to grab a your favorite beverage to go with those chips (I know, bad choice so let change that to Kale Chips) and are now faced with a dilemma. Seeing as you have nobody in the house to do your work for you, you can either watch your game while sipping a delicious beverage that you just got off your ass to get, or you could continue to sit there wishing you had the energy to get back up from your comfortable position to get yourself one.

Something tells me, if you really are serious about drinking your favorite beverage with your game, you’ll find it within yourself to get up off the couch to pop open a bottle of icy, happy goodness.  So if you can find it in yourself to get up off the couch to grab a beer, what’s holding you back from getting out of your comfort zone and making a move towards greatness and health?  When it comes down to it, both moves need some desire on your part, so in order to be as successful as you want to be, you have to want it badly enough to get up and go after it.

As stated earlier, the second biggest problem I have with reaching my goal is continuing past the first step. Sometimes I dip my toe into the water and immediately retract it, screaming and flailing our arms (fat shaking), saying it’s too cold and there was no way in hell I am getting in the water. But usually the initial shock of the cold only lasts a minute or so before I adjust to the temperature, and before I know if I’m swimming in a warm, refreshing pool, and soaking up all the sunshine. But I would never know unless I grit my teeth and get in all the way.

Long-term health is a big commitment. But if something is worth having, it’s not going to be that easy to get. You have to work for it, and I think most people (me included) have just gotten lazy. A majority of people seems to be born and raised in a lazy society. People hardly work off of their own sweat and tears anymore. Half of them practically had life handed to us on a silver platter.

To a professional athlete, pain and fatigue are just side effects of being the best. And as long as they continue to fight these things, they will continue to come out on top. It’s how they got there in the first place, and how they stay there. Nobody wins the gold by sitting on their ass eating potato chips (or Kale Chips). We spend too much of our time saying, “I wish I could” instead of, “I’m going to give it a try”. You want to be thin and healthy? Train for it. You want to start your own business? Invest. You want to own a house? Work for it. Not all of us are lucky enough to have our life handed to us, and even then it seems the people that are aren’t really happy. They’re missing something and I believe they’re missing the pride and satisfaction that comes from knowing they worked to their fullest extent and paid off every debt in life with real blood, sweat, and tears. Nothing can take that kind of satisfaction away.  I know as many friends filed bankruptcy where I stuck it out for 12 years of hell, but I made it, on my own, without pity or outside help.  Just hard work!  Now I need to approach my health like my finances.  Get it down, with hard work and long term effort.

So I reminded myself, I don’t always have to cannonball into the deep end, but I’ve got to get my feet wet before I learn how to swim.  So I have had a few weeks of solid workouts.  I am sore, my breathing is very difficult and I really do not feel good at all.  But this is the first step stage, I need to focus and get through it, then I can complain about these issues while I am better shape.  As long as no one, including me listens, I will be just fine!

Carry on my friends…

Fat man in the bathtub...

This post was not intended to relate to the song by LittleFeat.  When I wrote the phrase I intended to talk of the frustration with me being that fat man in a bathtub.  

Then my middle through high school years whizzed though my head.  Those were the years I listened to Little Feat, not understanding what the hell they meant by their crafty lyrics.  For those who know Little Feet in the early years, think of Dixie Chicken, Feats Don’t Fail Me Now or Fat Man in the Bathtub.    What were they saying?  I never really knew but they were so cool!

I came to understand that Fat Man in the Bathtub was actually the ultimate ode to sexual frustration. The girl keeps putting him off and the tension builds. Best line: "All I want in this life and time is some hit and run!"  And Dixie Chicken?  Listen and you should understand, relationship frustration…

But that is not why I wrote that title on this cold January evening.  It is actually a rant about all the health science in the world and Body Mass Index (BMI).  According to the theory, I am not supposed to weight more than 167 pounds.  I have not been that low since I was a 7^th grader attending L. E. Berger Middle School, West Fargo, North Dakota in 1975.  At 197 pounds I ran a 3:24 Marathon.  At 220 pounds, I ran 77 miles on the Superior Hiking Trail in 26 hours.    At that weight, my BMI said I am obese.  At a BMI of 38 I finished Grandma’s Marathon and logged over 3,000 miles on my bicycle over a period of less than 5 months.  While I strive to lose weight, I have always been the big man on the block!  

I even once heard a great story from another runner that he was told from a runner and said he knew it was me.  He said his friend was running the rigged 50K when at about 25 miles this fat man passed him.  This tinned man thought "I can't let that fat man beat me and he ran harder.  After about 10 minutes of the growing gap, the thin man reluctantly said to himself "that fat man is a great runner" and proceeded to let me run out of sight.  Love that story...

I have a friend of mine who has a BMI of 21 and is considered healthy by the BMI records.  He smokes, drinks and eats poorly, which I think equates to his low weight and lack of strength and energy.  He has trouble working on his house, going for a one mile walk might just kill him and he is always tired.  But if you dress us both up in a suit with the BMI embroidered on the front and ask who is in better shape, the answer would always be the same, not the fat man in the tub suit. 

Frustrating but true that we judge by our eyes and the scientific data drilled into our heads.  Since I heard Fat Man in the Bathtub in the middle 1970s, scientific studies seem to change what is right and what we need to do every decade.  These scientific result most reported (by the press who need to sell papers or ad spots to the company who has a product to sell) all seem to be related to what corporate sponsor put the most money into the study, which inevitably encourages the behavior to maximize the profit of those who pay for the research.  It is all about the dollar...

I believe the mind is the main tool for health and well-being.  But science just gives us a new pill or a miracle method.  Whatever happened to hard work, dedication and genuine care for oneself? 

Carry on my friends, and live you life in accordance with what you believe, not what the scientists tell you is right or wrong.

I got it?

I bet you are getting a little tired of all my blog rambling with little real substance about my exercise success or event reports.  I was able to get a solid start to the 2014 New Year with 6 consecutive days of varied level workouts, and then on the 7^th day there was a physician visit.  I am beginning to think that a human body can’t destroy the mind but the mind can destroy a body.  Crazy how a physician’s words and facial expressions can just send your mental well being in a downward spiral.

While I am still unsure of what caused this recurring infection that I can’t seem to shake long term.  Both my Physician and I think it was from the bike accident several years ago.  I am on another prednisone (30, 20, 10, 5 and 2.5 mg step down every four days - 20 days total) and eight days of 500 mg Levaquin treatment.  If this does not work, I think it will be surgery again.  Is it OK to say I am getting a little tired of fighting this?  I hate the levaquin!  It makes me feel like my muscles have dried up into beef jerky. 

Whatever the result, I will not have this stop my effort to finish Grandma’s Marathon for the 30^th consecutive year.  Yes, I registered and so has my son.  Not sure why he would bore himself running with the overweight old man, but he has registered.   He is an exceptional man, not sure what went right?  Must be the caring side of him he gets from his mother?

Well tomorrow is a new day.  I need to remember that each day is a blessing.

As many know, for quite some time I have had strong thoughts of my Grandfather Bill and his many stories I could not figure out.  Over the past weeks, one in particular has bothered me.  He one made the kids put our hands on the Bible after we once again did something wrong.  This one lesson was about us telling a lie which steamrolled to a level that we could not hide the lie any longer.

As he started his story, he said that we need to remember the importance of living up to the morals and good that is within God.  He then proceeded to say, “think of how history would have changed if Abraham Lincoln did not admit chopping down the Cherry Tree”.   All the kids tried to correct Grandpa and he insisted he was right and followed his emphatic statement with the statement “someday you will understand”, I never did understand.  Until now, I think I understand the lesson, 42 years later.

He was insisting he was right and as we grandchildren talked over the year, we shook our head at that stupid statement.  Now I think he was intentionally telling a false statement and insisted he was right, as we really thought he was stupid.  I think he was trying to get us to understand when you know you are wrong and keep insisting your are right, you look increasing stupid each time you try to convince others your lie is correct.  He is right, not living the truth can end up as a real embarrassing situation. 

I will await the Levaquin to allow my muscle to lubricate again and start regular workouts.  Mentally, I want to workout, physically, I struggle.

Carry on my friends, carry on!