I recently watched two documentaries, which I found very powerful. They reminded me how much I love suffering. I am talking about the kind of suffering that a person can choose to experience.
For example, I remember racing in a 35-minute criterium in 2006 or 2007. My mom was there to watch me race. At the end of the race, I rolled up to my mom and checked my heart rate monitor data. I remember saying matter of factly, "Huh. I averaged 181 beats per minute for 35 minutes." I know that I placed in the top ten, maybe like 6th, but I will never forget that I pushed my heart to beat more than 3 times per second for over a half an hour.
The first documentary is called The Barkley Marathons. It is about this crazy trail-running race held in Tennessee every year. I think that the race has been around almost 30 years and only 15 people have ever finished it. At the end of the movie, I thought of all the times I chose to suffer on a bike. I also remember one of my favorite bird-hunting days ever: the day I went on a vision quest. Only two other people in the world know the story. What a day.
The second documentary is called Figure It Out on the Hayduke Trail. It is about a 2-month hike in Utah and Arizona. The movie made me miss the West so much. It also made me realize that there is a lot to be done outdoors with my girls.
Figure It Out reminded me of how beautiful it is to choose to put one's self into situations that could turn out badly and then get one's self out of those situations. If you get banged up along the way, so be it.
I do not know what I feel right now. I am supposed to meet with the girls' mother to discuss financial stuff. I also need to finish up a draft of a paper (it is the only thing standing between me and a law degree). I also start online school tomorrow. None of those things seem to bug me like they did 24 hours ago.
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