...::: So I had a good summer :::...

(by: JR, 10.21.05)

So I had a good summer.  I ran a lot, rode some, and swam a little.  I splurged on a quality haircut, cut seven inches off my hair and got a cute new flippy summer do.  I visited friends, had friends come visit, worked at a job I am not attached to and don’t think about when I am not there just for the money.  I read a few books (What's My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States by Dave Zirin, and Anna Karenina). 

I hiked with my dogs.  I cleaned up my diet (mostly), cut out sugar and junk food except for the occasional Whopper and fries, added vegetables, and lost 8 pounds.  I happily realized that I had to get new clothes and went on a couple of small sprees with the girlfriends.  Got a few nice suits and some great Ralph Lauren boots (black Mei’s – cute, affordable, and very comfortable.  I can’t find the browns anywhere now, which sucks because like I said, they are very cute).  Bought two new smaller pairs of jeans and three smaller bras – pink with little flowers and stuff.  Very girlie.  I went to a funeral and a wedding (different people), a couple of cookouts, and bought a baby gift for a new baby, the niece of my boyfriend.  Had in-depth discussions about marriage versus living together.  No plans for marriage. I even got flowers at work.  All in all a very productive three months.

I did not watch TV or go online to do much more than check email.  My morning ritual of checking in at a few different tri sites evaporated.  I just stopped thinking about triathlon and wheel sets and finish times and splits and hydration and pissing contests and other people’s business.  In fact, I have not given more than a half-second of thought to the pros or the celebrities or the heroes or anti-heroes in our grand sport since May.  I assume that they are still out there doing what they do and not paying attention to the meaningless chatter and commentary that is the outside world, none the worse for minding their own business and ignoring the rest of us.

You know how you save a motivational or insightful quote at one point in time, only to stumble across it later and realize its deeper, or maybe changed, meaning? I am not talking religious quotes, deep insights by the muses of the ages.  I’m talking about simple passages you happen to come across in reading, or on a forum, somewhere inadvertent.  One of my favorites was posted on a tri site a few years ago.  I have no idea who posted it or who thought of it originally.  It is something to the effect of: the body does not understand distance, it understands time; the body doesn’t understand speed, it understands intensity.  When I first read that something clicked.  And whenever I come across it in the top middle drawer of my desk that holds my random bits of stuff that I like it clicks again.

Gordo once posted something on his site (and I am paraphrasing here, based on my own bad memory and interpretation) about the competitiveness of age-groupers being partly rooted in the frustration of being stuck in a cubicle rather than out doing what we love.  My apologies to Gordo if I completely butchered his thought.  But I liked what I understood that he said.  I wish I had saved that post. 

A quote that hit home for me this summer is by a guy named Michael Colgan.  I don’t recall where I found it, and I actually have no clue who Michael Colgan is.  I occasionally think to Google him, but this only really occurs to me when I am nowhere near a computer. I suppose I could Google him now as research, but I like not having any context for the quote except that which I give it. Here’s the passage in its entirety:

Already much of your potential may lie buried beneath false doubts and fears, sown by poor instruction during childhood.  If you desire to excel you must wipe the slate clean and start anew.  Practice resisting external influences every day.  Practice inner calm, silence, stillness in the midst of the daily static, the noise that passes for fact. Practice being driven only from within.  Those who excel are not more gifted than you.  They simply have cleared their minds of former fears, analyzed their strengths, and practiced them to the exclusion of disrupting influences.  You must do the same.

Television and the internet were my sources of daily static, the noises that pass for fact, and I was addicted to them. I needed the distraction and diversion from my own inner life.  I had a great summer when I let go of the external.  This, like most of the big changes I make in my life, was not a conscious effort. My shifts tend to creep up on me when I least expect them, and I find that I have taken action on something I didn’t know I needed my attention.  I am a big believer that we are predominantly directed by our unconscious, or subconscious, whichever one it is.  We are aware of maybe 10% of what is really going on in there.  I haven’t read Carl Jung since college, 15 years ago and it might be time to revisit him.

Anyway, I ran faster, lighter, more often, and happier this summer than I ever have.  I was liberated of the weight of not just 8 pounds of fat, but also public opinion, the crush of others’ thoughts, the meaningless chatter of the anonymous masses as filtered through our crappy media.   Don’t get me wrong. I like talking to people, sharing their thoughts and learning their experiences.  I just prefer to do it without this gang mentality that the commodification of public discourse has turned into in this country.  

I banished the middleman from my triathlon life.  I run to run, I ride to ride, and I swim to swim.  I can’t think of any other reasons to tri.  Not even for the t-shirt.  Unless maybe it’s dri-max.  Those are great.