It's Never Too Late to Start

Meet Chrissie Wellington:

As of January 2012, she's won four World Ironman Triathlon Championships.  Four of them.  That's pretty insane, isn't it?  First of all, just finishing an Ironman?  That's a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike ride, and FULL marathon, all in one go.  Now here's the kicker:  she didn't become a professional athlete until she was 30.

Apparently she had been a sporty kid, not really excelling in anything but more involved in the socializing aspect of sport.  As she grew up - attending the University of Birmingham, traveling and volunteering, and then going on for her masters - she still involved herself in sport, but continued to focus more on the social than the training.  Then in 2001, she decided to start training to run the London Marathon for charity, and in 2002 she crossed the finish line in 3:08.  Of course, going from mildly fit to running a 3:08 marathon in a year is an achievement in itself, but she had "tasted the Kool-Aid".  And after a car struck her while she was riding her bike, she turned to swimming, and then to triathlons.  

Years later, in 2007, she turned pro.  Five years after that, she's one of the foremost athletes in the world.

So here's the deal.  Many of us played sports in high school.  Or we involved ourselves in some sort of intramural in college, or maybe just limited it to the occasional game of hoops or touch-football.  Whatever the case, at some point we realized that - having not been training since birth - we've missed the boat on becoming a professional athlete.  Is it a little depressing?  Maybe.  But really, there are other things in life that don't require grooming-since-birth, like working in an engaging profession, or enjoying our time with friends, or starting a family.  And at some point, our fitness goals go from being athletes to just staying in shape.  Or really, if we're being honest, just *looking* like we're in shape.  Because we really just want to lose three pounds.

Now look at Chrissie Wellington again.  She may have stayed "in shape" for most of her life, but she didn't really buckle down and train until her mid-20s.  And with a determination and some realistic goals, she's become this shining example that we're not doomed to sub-par physical condition if our parents didn't have us throwing the ol' pigskin around at age 2.

So where does that leave us?  Well, I think it's time to look at where this mentality to just look "in-shape" is getting us.  We try the newest diet from Oprah, or we get on a hardcore elliptical-kick, or we becoming extreme nude yoga enthusiasts.  And then, 3 weeks later, without having set any realistic goal other than to see our abs, we miss a workout or two.  Or we don't see the weight melting off of us, and just decide that these training sessions aren't even worth pursuing.  Well, Chrissie Wellington has something to say about that:

"Often people feel they are not progressing as quickly as they want to," says Wellington. "Patience is key: the knowledge that the improvements you are making will make you stronger and fitter and that ultimately you will see the fruits of your labour."

Patience, and maybe a new outlook on how we approach our physical condition.  Why not, for once, train like an athlete?  Set a series of goals, work-out a serious, realistic plan, and train with that same intensity and determination that we've funneled into other aspects of our lives.  Maybe we won't become world-class triathletes, and that's fine, but have we actually, *really* tried to build ourselves into something better, physically?  Have we truly tapped into these incredible wells of potential that take the shape of the human body?  Probably not.  

And really, that's a pity.  Because looking at the likes of Chrissie Wellington, the human body can do some absolutely amazing things.

One Year Later

I had forgotten about this.  Well, no, that's a lie - I had remembered, every month or two.  And I had promised myself, time and time again, that I would write here soon.  Part of me wanted just to keep those people in my life updated.  But then, when I finally logged back in and read those entries - with their anger and joy and pity and inspiration - I realized something.  Maybe we need a record of those difficult times in our lives, just to see where we've been and where we're going.  And maybe this is mine.

So hi - to everyone and to my future self.  It's been a year.  In the life I plan to lead - one that is so long and full of experiences, both wonderful and terrible - a year is but a blip.  But I'm thinking this blip may have been a fairly important one, with its changes and realizations.  So here's what has happened in the past 365 days:

1.)  I'm in graduate school.  Again.  This past september, I officially started at Drexel University, working toward my M.S. in mechanical engineering, specializing in manufacturing and design.  And I'm in love with it.  Philadelphia is a phenomenal city (in need of a thorough cleaning, no doubt), but the city skyline has become a mere backdrop to what comes out of my professors' mouths.  The way they have been able to so easily draw me in, with knowledge so practical and interesting, is nothing short of extraordinary.  There have been several lectures where my first thought upon leaving the classroom was to get to the library so I could find out more.  To find someone to talk to about everything I had just heard.  I like that feeling.

Have I become the perfect student?  I wish.  Unfortunately, I'm still prone to my fits of procrastination and general laziness.  But this time around, things have been different.  My grades are fantastic (knock on wood) and - barring a few hiccups - the way I approach my reading and work has transformed for the better.  I feel like I'm actually getting what I'm paying for.  That is, a solid education.

2.)  I'm working full-time.  Is it engineering?  Well, no - far from it, actually.  Last August, I started my position as a title searcher for a title insurance company in Wilmington.  The job is what I needed, though.  The benefits, the schedule, the people - they have afforded me the opportunity to go to graduate school and still pay my bills.  And I'm thankful for that.

3.)  As of last September (notice how this all seemed to happen at the same time?), I moved into my own place in Philadelphia.  It's a teeny-tiny studio apartment with all the essentials, and I could not be happier with the space (minus a certain landlord..ehem) and the location.  On bright, warm weekend days, one of my favorite things to do is to walk into Center City, pick up my fruits and veggies for the week at Reading Terminal, snag a warm cookie, and walk back.  My only regret is that I have *barely* explored the city and all it has to offer.  With work and school, sometimes just scheduling time for sleep has been a problem.  But the more I learn about time management, the more I crave a fun, spontaneous day in the city, filled with good food and lots of walking.  And perhaps this quarter I'll make that happen.

So there you have it.  One year later, and it seems like I'm practically living a different life.  And a year later from today, hopefully I can look at this post and wonder, yet again, at the changes that have occurred.

This time, though, I'll try to post a bit more often before that happens.  Because there's more to a year than just a single blog post, right?

Right.  There are at least *two* blog posts in a year.

SO INTENSE

...is a good way to describe my last post. A bit too intense, mayhaps.

But, if you managed to get through it (uncomfortable squirming included), you would have found that I've hatched a hair-brained scheme to get back into the engineering groove. Hooray part-time grad school! If I get accepted, that is. I've applied to a few schools near Philly, and am hoping to either A.) Get a decent job that allows me to pay for a few classes per semester, or B.) Apply to an assistantship/fellowship for the following year, and just take one or two classes this year. Either way, I'd finally be productive and working toward my masters. It's not much, but at the same time, it's a whoooole lot.

My funky mood aside, I've actually been keeping up with the purpose of this blog (while not, erm, actually writing about it). But I have! For cereal! A few months ago, I started a lifting program in honor of the dreaded "beach season", and have (for once) started seeing results. Which means that I may not be a walking skeleton come July! And if you're familiar with my inability to gain any sort of weight, you know this is a big deal.

Am I still running, though? Ho yeah - although not as much as I was last fall. But I have a plan. Oh yes, a devious, maniacal, take-over-the-world-or-at-least-northern-Delaware type plan. Here's how it goes:

Step 1.) Continue with lifting program until late July, early August, when I've become a ripped, glistening Adonis of pure muscle, physique, etc etc.

Step 2.) Throughout said lifting program, continue running 9-12 miles per week, just to keep my legs with me. Occasionally pull-out a 5-miler, because sometimes it's impossible to hit the road, music blasting in your ears, and not run all over the city. But NO MORE.

Step 3.) Once lifting program ends, gradually step up my mileage until I'm running 20+ miles a week - all at comfortable speeds, just so I can get a feel of the road again. Continue lifting 2-3 days a week, if only to maintain my completely ridiculous new beach body. This should take me to the beginning of September.

Step 4.) GET IT. Which is to say, start the super-secret training plan I have to completely shatter last year's (slightly miserable) performance at the annual Thanksgiving 5k.

Step 5.) Win 5k, become symbol of human perfection, smile and make everyone in the area swoon, sign infantile foreheads, etc etc etc.

It's a good plan, no? I know you're impressed. Don't try to pretend that you're not quietly scribbling down every step of my plan, hoping to make it your own and challenge my greatness. BUT YOU WON'T. Because as much as I as sometimes blither about how my life sucks, I'm also now a smidgen obsessed with becoming better than I was - at least physically. And I will beat you (with a smile, though!).

So, there's a less INTENSE-FEEL-MY-WRATH update for you. I'll try to be good and actually keep posting, but we'll see.

Until next time!

Oh How The Times Are Changin

Oh how the times are changin.

Or are they? Sometimes I can't tell.

This world, always exposed to me;

I can click to see it move, see it evolve.

But what world evolves?

Is a world in which I am unchanging, unmoving,

Still the world?

To me?

To anyone else?

Sometimes I can't tell.

Sometimes I don't know.

--------------------------------

My days are starting to run together, it seems. I wake up - sometimes at 4:30am, sometimes at 9am, depending on the job and the hours - and head to work. I come home. I work out. I look for jobs. Sometimes I read. Sometimes I knit. Sometimes I paint. At all times, I think. I think about one thing.

Am I even meant to be an engineer any more?

Sometimes I wish that an employer would just do the deed. Look, maybe this isn't the line of work for you. Maybe it's time to find your calling elsewhere. Just so I would finally know to stop looking, to start "considering my options." But no one does. No one says it. You're a great candidate they say. I have no doubt you'll be incredibly successful in engineering. But not with them, apparently. This....this is what's driving me nuts.

So I keep going. Even though this dread - this awful dread that being out of engineering so long has made me unemployable - makes me doubt every step I take, makes me second guess every application I fill out. I keep going. I am meant to be an engineer I say. The options, always drifting in and out of my mind, grow more realistic and yet more disgusting everyday.

How can I know I'm not meant to be an engineer if I've never been one? Who will let me be one?

I decided a few months ago that this waiting, this unbearable reliance on everyone else to make me an engineer, was too much. So I started to think of the things that I could do to get back in the game. And, given that no one takes a chance on me in the next few months, I've formulated a plan.

I've applied to go back to graduate school, part-time, in Philadelphia. I will pay for it myself. I will find some job, closer to the city, that allows me to pay for maybe one class per semester, maybe two. Allows me to pay my bills. Allows me to finally move. Allows me to finally feel like I'm doing something. I will work and I will study. I will be an engineer.

This past year, I have worked 60+ hour weeks at two part-time jobs - sometimes working harder than those lucky sonsabitches with full-time jobs. It kills me that I'm working this way, at jobs that have nothing to do with engineering, just to get by, just to pay off my college loans. But you know what? I own it. I work hard and I own it, because I know that people have gone out on a limb, giving me jobs that I'd like - more than anything - just to escape from. And if I disappoint these people, what's to say I won't disappoint those people in the future who rely on me to be an engineer? So I don't disappoint them.

Maybe I'm not meant to be an engineer. Maybe someday, down the road, I'll discover my true calling.

But that will not be until after I have tried, have worked and made it, as an engineer.

"No one promised you there would be universal justice, you know."

A smart quote from a good book written by a smart man. Look it up.

Love actually small, overweight pony

Authorities find love, put on aggressive diet

By CP of the Blogger Quarterly

It was a scene of celebration and mild confusion as authorities ended what had become a centuries-long search, involving billions of bitter participants. They had found Love, and Love was morbidly obese.

Spectators chatted excitedly in the chilly air as a crew of firemen cut down the wall to a weather-worn wooden shed, revealing Love, a tiny, overweight pygmy pony. Gnawing lazily on a bale of hay, the pony showed little interest in the proceedings until a brave fireman waved a Bonbon through the newly-created hole. On small, sturdy legs that were all but eclipsed by the jiggling mass of pony stomach fat, Love ambled through the opening, thus exposing itself to the world. Scattered applause broke the morning silence.

The search for Love had been a constant presence in the media for nearly a millennium, although police captain Chris Spankypants said a surge of people suddenly started enquiring about Love’s whereabouts as the fourteenth of February approached.

“It was insane,” recalled Captain Spankypants. “As soon as the first of February passed, it seemed as if every other person was desperately looking for Love. Our assignment desk said that notices about the search started to flood the personal ad section in the local newspapers, not to mention the internet. Finally, it got to the point where our mayor asked us to create a formal investigation.”

Several days into the investigation, Spankypants received an anonymous tip that Love might be found in a small storage shed off of Haters Lane. Twenty minutes later, the pygmy pony was found. The captain, wearing a bedazzled vest and sparkling in the early light, was both relieved and slightly baffled.

After questioning the residents of neighboring houses, it was revealed that the pony had belonged to former-resident Johnson McJohnsonson. Johnson had purchased the pony for his five year old daughter Johnsina, who promptly named the portly steed Love. Johnsina was forced to leave Love behind, though, when the McJohnsonson family relocated overseas last month. In the chaos of moving, Johnson apparently only had time to fill the shed with twelve tons of hay before locking the doors one last time.

Upon asking for details about what would happen to the chunky, hooved hero, Spankypants referred all questions to Dr. Eunee Korn.

“Love has been transferred to a rehabilitation facility and is now on a significantly-reduced diet of carrots and oats,” Korn said. “I advise everyone to no longer let the search for Love overcome their lives. We should all, though, expect to see Love in better shape sometime in the future.”

Payneful

So if you did a lot of eye-rolling while reading my last post, here's the real deal: not every day on the trail is about speed/sunshine/rainbows/etc. In fact, if you were to study my running and enthusiasm-of for one month, you'd find I usually have three kinds of training days:

1.) ZOMG I LOVE SPEED. It's like I'm just rediscovering that I have feet, and then those shoes! And then HOLY CRAP WHEN I PUT ONE FOOT IN FRONT OF THE OTHER I MOVE. Those are the best days. The ones where I crave to be fast, where I want to see the world become a blur as I push myself harder and harder. Yeah, those days are all shiny running shoes and tubby, annoyingly cheerful angels.

2.) Uhhh, I can just run tomorrow, right? It's cold or something. These are the days where I have to practically drag myself out the door and grudgingly stumble toward the trail. Because, in reality, I could be doing a whole lot cooler things with my day. Like sitting on my ass and eating chips. I like chips.

3.) F*** LIFE. Remember when I talked about coming back from TDE? Those few weeks when I ran just to cause myself pain? Well, those days still come and go. BUT at least I'm channeling my frustration into something productive, right? I think?

Today was an example of the third. Somehow, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and by breakfast I was practically fuming about my situation. I barely have money, I have no job prospects, no one will hire me, I don't even have my own place, blah blah blah. My parents politely inquired if I could do a few things around the house, and I was all OHMYGAWD I'M BUSY CAN'T YOU SEE LIFE IS TOTALLY SHAFTING ME RIGHT NOW? And then after a bit of quiet huffing/puffing, I decided that I needed to punish myself. I needed to feel pain - because with pain, there comes strength. So I laced-up and stomped out the door.

According to the schedule, I had a 4-mile, easy jog today. But where's the pain in 4 miles? In doing things easy? No, today would be 7 miles. Today would be as hard as I could go for as long as possible. I wanted that stitch my side, and that strain of my muscles. I wanted that feeling at the end of a run where all you want to do is throw-up and curl into the fetal position. If life wanted to push me, I would push myself harder, and I would come out the other side stronger.

So I ran. My legs screamed at me. My lungs felt like they were going to collapse. My stomach felt like it would want nothing more than to evacuate the local population onto the pavement. And you know what? At the end of the run, my crappy mood was gone. Along with any feeling in my arms or face.

To tell you the truth, I don't know if trying to break myself like I do on these off days is a good idea. But I do know it helps me feel productive. After these runs, I feel like maybe I'm not just a lump of useless flesh, you know? Like maybe I'm still capable, even if I haven't been able to find a job...

Annnyway, if you ever see a guy running around Wilmington with an iPod strapped to his arm and a light blue beanie on his head, that's me! And then you can point and laugh at the crazy kid, because who actually wears beanies anymore? Huh? Amirite?

I am human.

I was wrapping-up my stretching as the last of the evening light struggled through the leaves, casting shifting shadows on the ground that seemed to dance with the wind. It was an incredibly peaceful moment, sitting there quietly in the cool dirt, staring at the winding asphalt trail ahead of me that disappeared into the trees some hundred yards beyond. As I switched to the other knee and pulled it to my chest, I half expected to see another jogger plod into view, lost in their own run. But there was no one else...and that was fine. It was perfect, actually. Who else do you need? I stood up, inhaled deeply, pressed play on my iPod, and took off.

It took only a few strides for my old friend to come swiftly back to me in a rush of chilly air. His presence caused my breath to catch momentarily, my steps to quicken, and my heart to drive a burst of adrenaline throughout my system. My mind welcomed him back with open arms, if only to use him for the painful pleasure that he would bring.

His name was Speed, and I had missed him.

Feeling reunited once again, I drove ahead along the path, the extraordinary beauty of the surrounding scenery becoming a mere sideshow for the main event - a snaking trail that seemed to pull me along. Though ignored, the chortling creek to my right continued to surge forward, cast into shadow by a looming, abandoned, and seemingly ancient factory on the other shore. The sharp face of the cliffs to my left stood steadfast as ever, its dull hues almost coming alive amongst the glowing evening light. This path, this park, this air - they were a runner's dreams. They were seductive and extravagant and alluring in the way that only nature can be, and they were the perfect backdrop for what I came to do tonight. But at the moment, that's all they were - a backdrop.

With the music pounding in my ears, it took me several minutes to realize that I was breathing way too hard. And that's when I was snapped out of Speed's bind, slowing to a more reasonable pace. No, I would not sprint tonight. I would not fly through these woods, pushing myself until my legs screamed and my lungs struggled to function. But knowing that I could, knowing that these trees could become a mere blur if I allowed Speed to ensnare me once more - that's what brought me back to this path, night after night. Knowing that if I worked at it, then the Speed I know could become something even more powerful, more seductive. Knowing that meeting up with this enhanced version of my old friend could mean an even bigger rush - that was worth being a runner. That was worth being a human.

Sometimes we are quick to forget how absolutely extraordinary our bodies are. At their peak, they are strong, swift, and agile...but they can also think, feel, and learn. They have a potential for phenomenal growth, and an awareness to carry it out. They are a combination of the most powerful computers and the most evolved vehicular designs on this planet. But time and time again, we forget what these bodies truly are. And that is holding us back from really feeling what it's like to be human.

But I am lucky. Running has opened a tiny crack in the window to my massive reservoir of human potential. And while I have only barely tasted what it's like to utilize my human body to its maximum ability, it was enough to get me hooked for life. I want more.

I can be amazing. No, I WILL be amazing. Why? Because I am human.