Melody Beattie once wrote:
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
As I enter my seventh week post surgery to implant a De Novo NT Allograft, I am overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude. Gratitude for my surgeon, gratitude for my friends at Endurance Rehab, gratitude for the vast amount of people who care about me in cyberland, gratitude for my friends who support my crazy dreeam of returning to Ironman Racing, and finally gratitude for my returning health. I am starting to feel like a new person. I have a strong sense of renewal.
As part of this renewal, I have found my sense of humor. I received this pic of my son at the zoo and I just thought it was so funny that I had to share it. I guess a gorilla came up behind him and it kinda startled him. Too funny.
God has certainly blessed me and for that I am so thankful. It has not been easy thus far and I am sure it will not be easy going forward but my health is indeed returning. And I absolutely love seeing the gains on a daily basis. When you are fit you just don't get that feedback.
By the way, I do not take this blessing thing lightly. I have never been a religious man. But given the abundant time that I have had recently, I have reflected on that subject and I am now giving thanks where thanks is do. Everyday, I am working at finding god, falling in love with him, and trying to figure out just what his plan is for me. Clearly this is going to evolve. And, I will shed more light on this subject as I figure out just what it means to me,.
As a side thought - just how do you pray? One would think this would be easy - I don't think so. I have trouble clearing my mind and just focusing. Next step - meditiation.
I gotta start somewhere. Baby steps my fresh and loose friends. A friend told me it is as simple as having a conversation. We shall see!!! I'm thinking I will try the Ricky Barby grace from Talladega Nights as my base effort. Shake and Bake baby shake and bake. I so can't wait to race again so I can say that again and mean it. You know if youre not first then you are last. Here is that scene from Talladega Nights.
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So this week was special to me as I got to celebrate a good friends birthday. I had a blast!!!! While we were out she jokingly called me Mr. Compulsive. This got me thinking about being compulsive.
After much consideration, it just reinforced my previous beliefs. Namely, that I am not very good at anything. Rather, any success that I have enjoyed in this life has been the product of just beating my head against the wall. I simply do not know how or when to quit. And I learned that from my dad.
My dad has been gone seven years this week. And, I miss him more with every passing minute. Funny how with a little more perspective I realize just how right he was about so many things. My dad was the real deal. He was a great man and the most generous person I've ever met. I am blessed to be his son and to have called him dad. I love him so much.
So in thinking of hard work, I found a couple of quotes that I like:
Depend on the rabbit's foot if you will, but remember, it didn't work for the rabbit. - R. E. Shay
You really never lose until you stop trying.
- Mike Ditka
Failure is the opportunithy to begin gain, more intelligently
- Henry Ford.
Alright, lets get to the good stuff. This was an awesome week as on Wednesday Dr. Glashow cleared me to start walking again. My immediate goal is to learn to execute a proper gait and to be completely off crutches before July 1. I will get that done.
In addition to the above, Dr. Glashow also cleared me to start riding on my computrainer again. I am very fortunate in that I have an epic set up. Here is shot of my man cave. Above my computrainer monitor I have another 40 inch flat screen for some quality viewing!!! I love having the World Cup and the US Open as a distraction. I intend to spend a ton of time here rebuilding my fitness.,
Below is a screen shot from my second ride. You can see my average watts were 111 for an hour and ten minutes.
The Computrainer is a great tool. I like using the real course videos for some base efforts. Here is a bit of video from one of those efforts.
And here is what excites me. Here is a screen shot from Saturday where my average watts were 131 for one hour and twenty minutes. That is way off from potential but much better than Wednesday. When I get anxious, I hear a mantra from Hillary resounding in my ear.
When starting over we don't measure performance from where we were rather we meaure it against yesterday!
Thus, all I have to do is be better than yesterday to be successful. And guess what - I am successful!! And that makes my day pretty darn special.
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