Gratitude

This wonderful video of Louie Schwartzberg's TEDx talk sums up how I feel when I am "suffering" through a long workout or race. But it's bigger than that.

Of course, in the moment, my gratitude is primarily of the physical variety:

I am healthy.
I have all my limbs.
I can feel pain.
I can control my body.

However, as a lifestyle, I think endurance sports transcend the simple physical existence and seeps into other areas. There's an empowering component in the quest of mastering something, of tackling something that initially looks insurmountable, no matter what that something happens to be. It can be playing a musical instrument, learning 60 seconds at a time how to navigate in freefall, landing an airplane 100 times before finally getting it right, learning how to lead and inspire others while managing them, admiring the view after climbing several hundred feet of ice, making the change from being primarily a weightlifter to primarily an endurance athlete. I've been blessed to be given the opportunity to do all of these. How many people get to take on so many fun and amazing challenges?

Intense study of any art form broadens the horizons the way nothing else can. It requires a different mindset than simply learning something very thoroughly. One must also learn to communicate through their art (drawing or music or dance or...), and put away the rational chatter of day-to-day living. Even those of us who are camera-shy learn to love being on a stage, performing. Odd, that.

Words can't describe the feeling of looking out the open door of an airplane, ready to throw yourself out and give yourself over to the laws of physics. Even better is flying on the outside of the plane, with only the toes of one foot inside. Utter physical freedom.

Brutal winter temperatures lose their sting when standing in a small crevice partly up a steep cliff, clipped in, resting and admiring the view after literally picking your way up the ice to get there. Winter's beauty is rarely seen from the comfort of our daily lives, and is well worth the effort to find.

Realizing that you are now enjoying the challenge of doing touch-and-goes on the numbers, remembering the fear you felt the first time you pushed the nose down in the landing pattern, is one heck of a kick. Successfully landing on the numbers is an even bigger kick. Doing a touch-and-go on Martha's Vineyard on one of your first solo flights, in squirrelly crosswinds? Indescribable.

Fear and uncertainty are familiar companions when you manage to get selected for Chief early, after only a few years of service. You wonder if you just got lucky and how you could possibly have deserved such a thing. Learning through intense testing that you did indeed deserve such a thing and legitimately earned it, albeit quickly, also meant getting used to stepping out of the comfort zone on a regular basis. Hmmmm, that's not such a bad thing, to be shoved out of your cozy little box. And damn, those khakis felt good.

So now, it's seemingly crazy things like completing an Ironman, running multiple marathons, tackling long bike rides, going longer, longer. Learning to spend time in the pain cave and "embrace the suck", sharing the suffering with other restless fools who just can't get enough...I can't explain it.

What connects all this rambling? A steady undercurrent of gratitude. Grateful I am physically able to try new things. Grateful I have the mind and physical health that enables me to organize life to find room and allow for a wide range of experiences. Grateful that I haven't had to face major obstacles, unlike many people I know. Grateful to know some of those people and be inspired by them. Grateful in more ways than can be enunciated here.

Just...grateful.