Thursday, January 31, 2013

Have I Done Enough?

"The goal of training is to do the amount necessary to accomplish the goal. Well with no workouts left between now and my debut marathon I am left to hope that I have done enough. I am reading Lance Armstong's book, It's not about the Bike. On the eve of brain surgery he deals with his concept of life and death and morals, and personally he leaves something to be desired. In particular, he wrote that he believed that living a true life was morally enough. What does his life have to do with my marathon? If everyone knew the result before the race there would be no point in the race.

Thus we continue in the competition. These races are not against others they are internal. So much of the battle is mental. Once the gun goes off it becomes physical, but the mental aspect could lose it for me long before Sunday morning.

I don't know exactly what will happen in my first marathon. That is part of the allure. I am sure around mile 23 things will be pretty interesting. Was it enough? We'll know around 10 AM this Sunday." - May 2011

Now more than a year and a half after writing that I still ask the question, 'have I done enough?' But the question isn't only about running, it never really was. I am constantly breaking through barriers and doing things I have not done in the past. For example, writing a master's thesis, moving to Iowa where I knew no one, I've tried to climb most of the famous stuff in this country, I've run two marathons and not terribly slow either, and I have saved my company hundreds of thousands of dollars. Yet, the challenges ahead are larger than the challenges behind. Plus, these hurdles can not be put in a box like a semester begins and ends so quickly. I want to go home and watch tv and eat potato chips instead of reading and writing and running the extra four miles, but I can't. I am tormented by who I want to be and what I want to do. Sure there is joy, amazingly rewarding happiness, and other accolades after milestones and accomplishments, but getting there... it hurts. If it was easy everyone would do it. I tell myself that, then I look at how slowly I seem to be progressing and wonder if everyone is doing it, or if others are working ever harder than myself to reach their goals.

Have I done enough? No.

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