A thought....

I don't normally post more than once per day, but I was cruising around facebook this morning.... (yes, I have a facebook account.) and I came across this group: "I believe in God because..." and it started me thinking. The thing that popped into my head is a quote from my favorite author: Madeleine L'Engle. Not from one of her children's books, but from a book on prayer. I found it again, and it so moved me that I had to share it with you all. 

- "There are three ways that you can live life – three again – remember that great writers always do things in threes.

"You can live life as though it’s all a cosmic accident; we’re nothing but an irritating skin disease on the face of the earth. Maybe you can live your life as though everything’s a bad joke. I can’t.

"Or you can go out at night and look at the stars and think, yes, they were created by a prime mover and so were you, but he’s aloof perfection, impassible, indifferent to his creation. He doesn’t care, or, if he cares, he only cares about the ultimate end of his creation… You don’t matter to him, I don’t matter to him, except possibly as the means to an end. I can’t live that way either.

"Then there’s a third way: to live as though you believe that the power behind the universe is a power of love, a love so great that all of us really do matter to him. He loves us so much that every single one of our lives has meaning; he really does know about the fall of the sparrow, and the hairs on our head are really counted. That’s the only way I can live."

You know you're a grown-up when.....

You decide to cancel a vacation because it's the "sensible" thing to do. And you don't really feel all THAT bad about it.

I'm tri-ing, I'm tri-ing

Lately, I have been full of life-lessons. Today will be no exception.

Sunday I participated in the Siesta Key Sharks Triathlon. It was a 1K swim (.62 miles), a 21K bike (13 miles) and a 5K run. (3.1 miles.) This would be the second year that I have participated, and last year was FANTASTIC. This year, I let my head get in the way. Here's the summary:

2007 Triathlon

I mean, I loved it. I started with a goal time of 100 minutes. As I went from event to event, I merely did the best that I could. I had no sense of how long it was taking me to do various events. (Actually, at one point on the bikes, one of the many volunteers called out to me - "Half Way There" and I thought, well, crap. I thought the end was around the corner. That's how far off my timing was...... So when I finished my run (which was ON THE BEACH) and came around the corner and saw the clock and it said 90:42 I was elated. 30 seconds later when I crossed the finish line, and had crushed my goal time by almost 8 minutes, I thought I was the triathlon goddess. Seriously. So I definitely was going to do next year's event.

2008 Triathlon

I am totally prepared. My equipment has gotten better. Plus I have been training for the marathon, so I'm in better shape than I was last year. I have my watch, I have my sunglasses, I am set. The night before, I went over my stats from the previous year. 14 minutes on the swim 41 minutes on the bike, 30 minutes on the run. Plus an obscene amount of transition time. I can do better than this, I think..... let's see: new goal time is 85 minutes. I can DO this.

The morning of the tri arrives. I am out the door at 5am sharp. I have my spot laid out and all my various and sundry "stuff" ready for action. It's now 6:30. I still have an hour to kill. The nervous energy is permeating my stomach. I run into some friends and say hi.

I meander on down to the beach to wait for the starting gun. Whew. I hit the water. (and booooy it's a little chilly.) I swim. and swim. and swim. and swim. and swim. I get out of the water and look at my watch. 23:18. WHAT?? 22?? What have I done? I thought I swam well, I certainly swam hard. I did much better than last year. I did get kicked in the head once by someone doing the breast stroke ‹rant› NEVER DO THE BREAST STROKE DURING A TRIATHLON OPEN WATER SWIM. YOU TAKE UP TOO MUCH SPACE AND YOU'LL KICK SOMEONE IN THE HEAD ‹/rant› but I had a good swim.

Well, this is where my head got into the way. Instead of listening to the people yelling "Good Swim. Great Time. Keep Going" I was totally focused on 8 minutes more. 9 minutes more. 9 minutes more. And that was what I did for the entire time. My bike was about the same as last year which was totally acceptable, since there was construction and a farmers' market in Siesta Key that morning. My run was 2 minutes faster. My transitions were MUCH better. In fact, I finished the tri only 6 minutes longer than last year. But when I crossed the finish line at 98:04, I was, well, peeved. So instead of being elated, I was annoyed. My husband and children were there to watch me (at my request) and I was in a lousy mood.

Later, when I checked the score boards, I saw that I placed 7th in my age group. Out of 28 people. That means I was in the top 25% for my age. (Not overall by a long shot, but that's OK.)  And then I started to feel OK about myself. After talking with one of the other swimmers who was commenting on the horrible current that we had to swim AGAINST for most of the swim, I felt even better about my performance. By the end of the morning, I was feeling downright proud.

There are TWO lessons here:

The first and more prevailing: Don't let you head get in the way of your optimism.... I could have had a GREAT time and a wonderful race. I didn't. The blame lies solely with me. This goes beyond just the triathlon, though. In these uncertain economic times, Pragmatic Optimism (to borrow from a newsletter written by Doug Van Dyke of DVD Consulting Inc. - and my DH) is the rule of the day. Don't be stupid, but don't let yourself get bogged down in the depression of the day. (He said it much more eloquently than I.)

The second lesson is this: sometimes goals need to be readjusted. Just because you set a "goal" doesn't mean that it's set in stone and written in blood. You can change things. If there are other people involved, make sure you communicate with them, that way you stay in integrity, but sometimes, just sometimes, life gets in the way of achieving things exactly the way we have planned. Roll with it.

And as for me, well, I am going to train like a madwoman for the marathon and then for the next triathlon. As long as I keep on tri-ing, it will be good!