Thoughts and Perspective

The morning started out with an early morning ride in Irondale. Afterwards, I made my way over to the Y for a shower before going into the office. If you’re a gym regular, especially a regular in the morning, you end up seeing the same guys each morning in the locker room going through the same routine. I’ve discussed the weird habits and cultures of the men’s locker room so I’m not going to revisit that for now. That’s another post altogether. Well, after a few months of getting dressed within 5 feet of each other, you end up making friends or at least acquaintances with some of these guys. There is one regular in particular who’s well known in the running community. He’s probably 48 or so. He mentors runners new to the sport, teaches spin class (a hell of a spin class), and holds an annual 10K. He and his wife have already completed 3 or 4 marathons this year. The picture I’m trying to paint here is that running and fitness is a huge part of his life. We always have plenty to talk about, but it’s usually just bad mouthing others who leave their wet towels around or leave the area around the sinks in total disarray. Today, he was telling me about his recent trip to the doctor regarding his knee pain. As with any runner, especially an old one, this is a huge concern.
It turns out that with about a month off, whatever was causing the pain will have repaired itself enabling him to continue on. It’s a fairly happy ending, but for the last month or so, he’s had to face the possibility of having to hang up the running shoes. Forever. Forever.
That’s pretty mind numbing and life altering.
So, here’s the hypothetical situation: If you’re a fan of the show “Lost”, you’ll remember back to season two where a heart monitor was supposedly inserted into Sawyer’s chest by the “Others.” If Sawyer’s heart rate went up a brisk walking pace, then the monitor would cause Sawyer to have a heart attack. This was meant to keep Sawyer from trying to escape. Brilliant. Let’s say this is the situation so as to keep any of you with vivid imaginations from getting around this inability to exercise.
So what do you do? This life style that we’ve all come to enjoy has totally been taken away from us. While most of us may only train say 10 or so hours a week, we’re probably thinking about training or racing another 10 or 15 hours in a given week. We spend a lot, I know, a lot of our hard earned money funding our training and traveling to races. To say that Triathlons or running for others is a big part of our lives is probably a bit of an understatement. How would you react if it was all taken away? This is a sad and terrible situation, but a situation a lot of people face daily. What if one major part of your life was totally taken away from you? Do you react graciously by volunteering at future races or by helping others in the sport? Do you become a recluse and shut yourself off from this cruel cruel world? Now, I’m picking on Triathlons because in the grand scheme of things it’s a lot easier than say losing a job or a loved one, but you get the picture.
I started asking myself this question this morning. What would I do? I can’t answer that right now. I know without a doubt that I would be very angry and would feel like a total victim for a while. Most people would. Luckily, I know ultimately (and I hope that I would remember this, but if I didn’t I know my wife would remind me) that my life is not defined by my sport. It’s not why I’m here. My hope is not in this world or my accomplishments here. Praise God for that.
So I leave you with this thought: While given the chance, burn on and enjoy every minute of this life that God has given you, but don’t lose perspective of what really matters.