"The Year of Broken Things." That is the way 2012 will forever be remembered in my mind. It was full of heartbreak and disappointment, and while I try not to wish time away, I am glad to say "good riddance" to it. I know it held some great and wonderful things, but I don't have the time to think long enough to remember them. When I woke up on the morning of December 31st, I felt a lightness of heart that I couldn't remember. I felt good--physically and emotionally--and suddenly, having felt that way once again, the absence of it in the past year and a half was felt all the more.
A couple of days before the end of the year I came across this quote from Theodore Roosevelt, "Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the grey twilight that knows not victory nor defeat." It reached out to me, as things sometimes will, and struck me as a good thought to tuck back for the coming year. Specifically, "DARE MIGHTY THINGS" jumped out.
One of Marc's friends asked him a few months ago if I had made it through my mid-life crisis yet. After I got over being pissed off that he accused me of being middle aged, I realized he was right. I've spent the last two years or so trying to figure out my place in the world, trying to decide if my career path was completely off track or if it was just at a less scenic point in the journey. That self-reflection along with some ideas that we've been tossing back and forth for years has led to some major changes for us. I've quit my current job, and Marc and I have decided to focus a little differently on life for the foreseeable future. The rough draft has been put in place, but we're still working on the details. This quote reminded me that as we grow up and age, we lose our imagination in a lot of ways and sometimes lose faith in our ability to accomplish great things. Without imagination or faith, we stumble along in the same safe rut, never seeing the other beautiful things we can do.
So while 2012 was the Year of Broken Things, 2013 shall be the Year of Daring Mighty Things.
Showing posts with label Inspiration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Inspiration. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Monday, May 10, 2010
Why Do We Train? Part I
Monday, May 9, 2010
166#
I have had the pleasure of being off of work for the last 8 days--an advantage of the type of work that I do. While I might have been away from work, I have not been away from work. I have been busy.
Last Monday I went with my fishing buddy Earl on a float fishing trip down the Ichetucknee River.
Earl is quite the inspiration. He is 80 years old and more vibrant than most 50-year-olds I see. He has spent his entire life fishing the rivers in this area, and wandering these dirt roads (only main roads in north central Florida are paved). He walks an hour every morning--barefoot if it's more than 70 degrees outside. As a matter of fact, once spring hits, he doesn't ever wear shoes unless it's to the store or church. He always offers a smile, and is an eternal optimist. Anyway, he wanted to take me on a float fishing trip which amounts to sitting in float like this one
and casting your line. Though we usually fly fish, the stretch of river we went down was too narrow, so we were spin casting. Loaded with a fish basket, this float weighs about 10 pounds and is seriously unwieldy. When I threw it up on my shoulder, the ends hung down to about my knees. Then, of course, we had rods to carry too. Because the trip laid out the way it did, we had to walk about 1/2 a mile to the put in, climb a fence, then muck through a fair amount of knee deep bog to get into the water. I offered to carry both tubes, but Earl insisted he carry his own and was a little bent that I wouldn't let him carry mine. LOL. About half-way through the trip, a fresh-fallen tree completely blocked the river and we had to portage about 100 rough yards through some seriously nasty bog. It was no cakewalk for me, yet Earl had no more trouble than I did. Did I mention Earl is 80? I do what I do every day in hopes that 80 looks the same for me.
Incidentally, I gave myself a little pat on the back on this trip. We parked his vehicle a 1/2 mile from the put in and mine at the take out. Unfortunately I forgot my keys in his car. Sooooo, when I realized it as we were pulling the tubes out of the water, I took off for my keys which were at this point about a mile away (after convincing Earl I would be quicker at it than he would since he told me he had walked the same trip last week in a little over 20 minutes because he was fishing alone). I had my 5 Fingers on and was headed down a dirt road, and since walking takes way too long, I decided to run. I made the mile no sweat though I hadn't run in well over 6 months. Nice WTH effect, huh? :)
TODAY'S WORKOUT: I decided at the end of my 8 rep max week last week that I needed to repeat it. The pull ups were just not as solid as I would have liked them, and the push ups weren't even that good, and I didn't want to build on a less-than-perfect foundation. I got a couple of days into the second week of 8-rep-max last week before taking a break for other endeavors. So today I resumed my 8-rep-max 3-P's (pull ups, push ups, partial pistols) routine without feeling like I had lost anything.
I did 92 16kg snatches in 5 minutes before giving in to a callous that was about to rip which I canNOT afford right now.
WORKOUTS FROM TUESDAY TO SUNDAY?...You've got to wait a couple of days for those because they are a part of Why Do We Train, Part II
166#
I have had the pleasure of being off of work for the last 8 days--an advantage of the type of work that I do. While I might have been away from work, I have not been away from work. I have been busy.
Last Monday I went with my fishing buddy Earl on a float fishing trip down the Ichetucknee River.
Earl is quite the inspiration. He is 80 years old and more vibrant than most 50-year-olds I see. He has spent his entire life fishing the rivers in this area, and wandering these dirt roads (only main roads in north central Florida are paved). He walks an hour every morning--barefoot if it's more than 70 degrees outside. As a matter of fact, once spring hits, he doesn't ever wear shoes unless it's to the store or church. He always offers a smile, and is an eternal optimist. Anyway, he wanted to take me on a float fishing trip which amounts to sitting in float like this one
and casting your line. Though we usually fly fish, the stretch of river we went down was too narrow, so we were spin casting. Loaded with a fish basket, this float weighs about 10 pounds and is seriously unwieldy. When I threw it up on my shoulder, the ends hung down to about my knees. Then, of course, we had rods to carry too. Because the trip laid out the way it did, we had to walk about 1/2 a mile to the put in, climb a fence, then muck through a fair amount of knee deep bog to get into the water. I offered to carry both tubes, but Earl insisted he carry his own and was a little bent that I wouldn't let him carry mine. LOL. About half-way through the trip, a fresh-fallen tree completely blocked the river and we had to portage about 100 rough yards through some seriously nasty bog. It was no cakewalk for me, yet Earl had no more trouble than I did. Did I mention Earl is 80? I do what I do every day in hopes that 80 looks the same for me.Incidentally, I gave myself a little pat on the back on this trip. We parked his vehicle a 1/2 mile from the put in and mine at the take out. Unfortunately I forgot my keys in his car. Sooooo, when I realized it as we were pulling the tubes out of the water, I took off for my keys which were at this point about a mile away (after convincing Earl I would be quicker at it than he would since he told me he had walked the same trip last week in a little over 20 minutes because he was fishing alone). I had my 5 Fingers on and was headed down a dirt road, and since walking takes way too long, I decided to run. I made the mile no sweat though I hadn't run in well over 6 months. Nice WTH effect, huh? :)
TODAY'S WORKOUT: I decided at the end of my 8 rep max week last week that I needed to repeat it. The pull ups were just not as solid as I would have liked them, and the push ups weren't even that good, and I didn't want to build on a less-than-perfect foundation. I got a couple of days into the second week of 8-rep-max last week before taking a break for other endeavors. So today I resumed my 8-rep-max 3-P's (pull ups, push ups, partial pistols) routine without feeling like I had lost anything.
I did 92 16kg snatches in 5 minutes before giving in to a callous that was about to rip which I canNOT afford right now.
WORKOUTS FROM TUESDAY TO SUNDAY?...You've got to wait a couple of days for those because they are a part of Why Do We Train, Part II
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