A tribute to myself

Yes, I know that title sounds pretty self-serving.  But it's my blog, nobody reads it*, so I can indulge myself.

A few weeks ago now (I haven't had a chance to write this before now), I accomplished a goal I had set for myself.  When I set it for myself, I thought it was possible, but fairly close to the limit of what I'm capable of.  It's an athletic achievement - a result time for an event, actually.  Now, when I was younger, this time was not that difficult for me to achieve, although by global standards of athletic excellence in this particular sport, I'm not particularly great, but I am proficient.  

Now, at my current age, and though there's no way to know, I suspect that not a lot of people could achieve the goal that I set, and which I achieved.  Maybe a couple hundred or so, globally.

But the real accomplishment was not really the goal, but how I got there.  You see, I tried to make the goal almost a year ago.  And I came close, but didn't make it.  I figured, with just a little more training and some adjustments, that I would be able to do it fairly readily.  However... schedules, injuries (which are an ever-present concern at the intensity I train at), illnesses, and ill-timed events sapped my training regimen and fitness level several times, sometimes with very unfortunate timing just about at the point where I was ready to try again.  But, I persevered.  And despite an illness that was poorly timed, I was able to recover and rest sufficiently to give the event another try.

And it was truly at the edge of my capability that day.  It was a 100% effort.  I had virtually nothing left at the end.  It hurt, a lot.  Every muscle in my body was drained, and my physiology was sorely taxed.  But I pushed through it.  I knew I was close, I knew I would be close, and with just a little more distance to go, I gave myself a "now or never" mental command to force every iota of effort remaining to get to the finish.   And when I saw that I had made it, I was relieved, because it had been so painful that I didn't want to think about having to try again.

So I'm proud of myself.  And weirdly enough, very few people know about it.  But now you do.  And even though I am just an average athlete in this sport, I share a kinship with those in the highest echelon who have gone to the edge, and set records.

OH, and by the way -- I didn't use any performance-enhancing drugs.  It was all me - all that's left of me, basically. Yay me!


* Not true, exactly.  My article on the female body model for the Los Angeles Olympic nude male and female torso statues, Jennifer Inniss, is number one in the search results when someone searches for "Jennifer Inniss statue".  So it's had a few hits.  And a LOT of people (relatively speaking) read my article about how pretty the mother of Lionel Messi's baby is.  Furthermore, people also keep coming back to my evaluation of Julianne Hough's virginity, or likely lack thereof.  And also, my "What ever happened to Nastassja Kinski" post is high in the search results and gets hits regularly.  So, a few people occasionally find and read articles on my blog.  Not many, but a few do.  Thank you for reading this article, if you did.