Back on Track

The track belt feels good beneath my running shoes.  The smell of  hot men, and running machines fills my still congested lungs. I'm still clinging to the cough that kept me out of the gym last week.  It is not wall shattering having evolved to a dry rasp of annoyance. Still rude not to cover it, but barely worth the effort.

My workout partner is undaunted by my hacking and has mastered the art of ignoring it.  Favoring instead to bark orders- corrections in form and challenges to my counting, which admittedly can some times be inflated based on my mood.  She is exactly what I need.

Working toward any goal you can count on stumbling. It is not about if, it but rather a question of when.
Getting sick, working exhausting hours, family situations can all be used to hold us back or to drive us onward. Working out clears my mind, sets the mood for the day focusing me on what is important.

A fellow patron at the gym wanting to be helpful asked my buddy and myself once what our goal was?  Was it to build bulk or to build long lean muscle.  She adjusted the ginormous amount of weight we had set up for ourselves to a third of what we had and showed that slow and deliberate movements are what we want to use to carve our bodies.  The fellow patron has probably long forgotten the question.  The encounter spoke to me.  Her question is one that can be used for many areas of life.  When eating, shopping, writing, living- is it bulk and the itch to gather bulk that drives us or is it the drive to have lean figures, and meaningful text. Since speaking to that patron I have tried to focus on those words as I work each muscle.  Focusing on being lean in my actions for the day and those at the gym. I have sweat over words, pulling slow to find meaning rather then extraneous fluff. 

This is not the first time I have lived this lesson.  Not long ago I found myself in a hungry scramble to get, to have and to do more.  I was desparate to change careers, getting my MBA so I could count myself successful with all the stuff that would be the jewels in my crown.  Angry with my position I went to Botswana working with a travel company to present a possible partnership- a step to the goal.

Driven around in expensive German cars, to five star resorts made me feel empty.  It was stepping out on to the open national lands surrounded by the unpredictable wild that brought me home.   On one of the evening safaris our group spotted two lions, 'the boys', were a short distance from our camp. After good fellowship with locals and local dinner we all retreated to our tents.  Laying in bed the night breeze licked at my bare feet.  My chest began to rumble, the boys were close.  Blowing out my light, still blind to the world outside my tent I listened.   The boys entered the water, exiting to the dry land behind my tent.  The low rumble got close, and the licking of their mouths, the dripping of the water rolling off their coats boomed feet away.  Looking, straining to see behind my tent they were doing the same.  Walking over, sitting next to my tent, they were curious.  They leaned in to smell. My limbs shook I still don't know if it was fear or their constant rumble.  Holding my breath we all waited.  As if taken on the wind they were gone, nothing but the dream of it remained.  Sitting next to raw unrestrained power, was like being in the presence of God.  I found myself not worried about the having more, it was about the moment. I worried about breathing, being.  Nothing else was left.  Lean living was and is my concern not how much more could I have or get.