2 weeks till IRONMAN - I did change and I did find myself

So I have been thinking about this picture a lot lately.

I didn't change, I just found myself. . . .

I'm not sure how I feel about this statement. . .

I think one of the reasons I signed up to do Ironman was because I really wanted to change.  To do something so hard that it would cement the changes that I have made in the last year - actually in the last 5 years.  I want this change.

During the last year, I think that I HAVE changed. . . . truly changed.  I also believe that in that change I have also found myself.  So I think I have done both - change and find myself.

I am hoping that I have paid the price, that I have worked hard enough that the change is permanent.  One of the greatest fears that I often have is that I may become part of the 95% of those who gain their weight back.

I hope and pray that this change sticks. . . .

Many nights I climb into bed after a hard day and sigh under my breath - "I love my life".  I really do.

Here is a great Bruce Lee story about change. . . . .

Bruce had me up to three miles a day, really at a good pace.  We'd run the three miles in twenty-one or twenty-two minutes.  Just under eight minutes a mile (Note: when running on his own in 1968, Lee would get his time down to six-and-a half minutes per mile).

So this morning he said to me "We're going to go five."  I said, "Bruce, I can't go five.  I'm a helluva lot older than you are, and I can't do five."  He said "When we get to three, we'll shift gears and it's only two more and you'll do it."  I said "Okay, I'll go for it."

So we get to three, we go into the fourth mile and I'm okay for three or four minutes, and then I really begin to give out.  I'm tired, my heart's pounding, I can't go any more and so I say to him, "Bruce if I run any more," - and we're still running -"if I run any more I'm liable to have a heart attack and die."

He said, "Then die."  It made me so mad that I went the full five miles.  Afterward I went to the shower and then I wanted to talk to him about it.  I said, you know, "Why did you say that?"

He said, "Because you might as well be dead.  Seriously, if you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it'll spread over into the rest of your life.  It'll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being.

There are no limits.

There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.

(From the Art of Expressing The Human Body)

So doing Ironman is not about finding my limits, it is about going beyond my plateaus. . . .