It was a bitter cold day in Beloit, Wisconsin. Four 12-year-old boys stood in a one car garage contemplating their next move. The Packers’ game just ended and they were anxious to recreate favorite plays from their favorite players. The only problem was, two feet of snow.
Actually, that wasn’t a problem at all. Weather never got in the way of fun, so they grabbed shovels and carved boundaries and yard markers into the dormant brown grass. Their hands and feet went numb in the process, but they knew running a few plays would bring the appendages back to life.
The boys played for hours. Their noses ran and it froze on their top lip. Screams of laughter erupted whenever snow crept inside the warm parkas and chilled their raw skin. It wasn’t about the cold, it was about how moving made them feel. Landing face-first in a snow bank woke them up. All-out-dives for a ball just off their finger tips was a great reason reason to try again. It wasn’t conscious, but they knew movement healed them.
Most of us have stories like this from childhood, but there’s something about growing up that makes us forget the very nature of what makes us feel good. We park at desks for 8 hours a day, drive in traffic for another, then sit around all night and watch television. Only to wake up and do the same thing tomorrow — all the time wondering what is missing?
I suppose this starts in college when we lock down for hours in a dark library basement filling our brain with information we believe will make us successful. It’s important to be smart and make lots of money being a doctor or lawyer or CEO of a company because we can take care of our family by keeping them safe and offering comfortable lounges where they can lay around and watch television with us.
We study for hours. Often overnight. Jamming information into our brain, then wondering why we’re tired and empty from all of these facts we’re digesting. After years of devotion to learning stuff, we float across a stage to grab a piece of paper that we frame and stick on the wall (or in a box) before thrashing ahead to the world of professional desk guarder.
But we want to move.
Who is this person we’ve created, and why do we repress the kid that never wants recess to end? Every time I hold the backdoor open for a kid or my dog, they tear off into the yard at full tilt. They are immersed in the moment, in touch with the purest form of living and oblivious to pain or complication.
A lot of people ask me why I would want to do an Ironman and I’m not sure if I have an intellectual answer. It has something to do with finding consistency with the best side of me. Leveling the spots where I am awake and passionate about the path.
Deep down, we all know “who we are,” it’s just a matter of finding that person more often and trusting the process like a kid would. Training affects me in so many ways, but mainly, it reminds me to run, breathe, and be alive.