Return to Normalcy


I have decided to tweak my physical constitution.

When one routinely performs a certain act, lives a certain way, or worships a certain God, each respective item begins to forge the man.

The hammer of the will galvanizes the man upon the anvil of environment.

I was a runner for three years before I entered multi-sport. I was a student of the roads, a disciple of distance. I knew nothing of cadence or bilateral breathing or PSI. And I was better for it.

So I decided last week that I want to return to this state. Inhabit my body. Remain cognizant of sleep patterns, my turnover rate, and how low I can get my resting heart rate.

For a long time I thought satiation and tranquility was achieved my maximal exertion. This is false. I have re-learned what I knew in 2003, and in what in 2005 was unconscionable. Simple motion through space elates one. Nothing more is necessary. Not training three hours a day, or three times a day, or both. Rather, the simple elegance of vesting in that one hour of freedom, wherein, as the late George Sheehan said, "The first 30 minutes is for the body, the last thirty minutes is for the soul."

It is here where I find the gravity of my soul.

I don't find it cycling, or swimming. I recall numerous workouts in triathlon, where all I would want to do is drop the bike, get out of the water, and just run. That's all. Nothing more. Just run.

It is for these repeated desires, that I am becoming a runner again. I am resolute to run, and train as such, absent the mechanized distractions of multi-sport, or the inherent acidity of swimming.

This is who I was. And whom I will become again.

I can say unequivocally that in endurance sport,"Some Finish Lines Mean More Than Others"