Try to Fail

I think it happens pretty quickly. You go from inactive to active and realize, oye, I've really let myself go! For me, it's the biggest hurdle to "trying". When my mile time has risen from 6 minutes and 30 seconds to 9 minutes and 10 seconds, I get a wee bit discouraged. I tell myself things like, "Whats the point? You'll never get back to the way you were so don't try. Just quit." It's a horrible, common stream of logic.

I think in part, it's a problem with the connotation of success, failure and try. For me, I operate on a continuum of success and failure. I try and either succeed or fail. When I fail, I usually quit. But can't success simply be defined as trying? For a long time I've viewed the word "try" as timid. It leaves room for the failure and is surprised by the success. But in trying haven't you already succeeded?

Trying is getting up and running even though you may finish the run in a walk. Trying is playing with your kids even though they look at you like you're crazy because, "This is weird, daddy never plays with us." and though its awkward, you play, you stick with it and do it again tomorrow. Trying is succeeding in putting forth the effort to start and without a start there can be no success or failure. So lets embrace the "try". Lets celebrate the failure as much as the success! Lets celebrate the failure because we tried and failure isn't permanent unless we never try again.

There was a sentence painted on the wall of my high school weight room. It read "try to fail". In its context, it referred to lifting weights and trying to reach muscle failure during a strength training workout. Now, I see it as much more than that. What if we lived our lives trying so hard we forced ourselves out of our comfort zone and into the unknown. Into the unknown where failure lives. What if when failure comes, we learn from it and try again strengthened by the failure?

I'm not going to finish my race come race day if I don't fail now. I'm not going to fail now unless I try. If we don't try we stay ok. When we stay ok we don't get stronger... We stay ok...

So lets "try to fail" so we can get stronger, so we can be better, so we can thrive.

Will you try with me?

I'm OK

There was a point in time when I was in great shape. I was a soldier so out of necessity, my body was conditioned as such. So what happened? How did I get here? A 31 year old couch sitter. It's simple. I stopped trying.

You see I left the military and entered a world of self-medication. I drank too much in an effort to numb my feelings and used cocaine to feel something. I ate out, never cooked in and when I was motivated to eat healthy (after an all night bender) I'd walk to Subway. Nothing says healthy like cheese, pepperoni, salami, ham and a bag of chips!

Fast forward about 5 years and two drug influenced hospital stays and I was finally clean, mostly sober and 35 lbs heavier (about 195 lbs). The only exercise I was getting was running to the oven to save the pizza I was burning and climbing the stairs to my bedroom. I wasn't winning at life, but I was getting better.

Over the next 6 years my weight and energy level would fluctuate. I would get married, have two beautiful baby girls and receive a service dog for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) through This Able Veteran So what now? Why am I writing this? Why share this brief summary of my post military life? It's because I'm ok.

I'm ok and the world convinced me ok was..... well... ok! I've come to realize I'm an ok husband an ok father and my health is ok. I've come to realize ok doesn't take work. Ok is existing. A farmers field with an ok yield produces just enough to get by. Ok is simply surviving. But God didn't make us to survive, He made us to thrive!

Ok marriages end. I don't want my marriage to end... ever. Ok health lacks energy and I want to run and play with my kids and when I do it I don't want to feel like my knees will explode or I'm going to somehow hurt myself!

This is my line in the sand. This is my declaration. This is me stepping into the arena, onto the battlefield and beginning to fight. I'm fighting for my family, for my health and for a future thats more than ok. Will you join me on this adventure?

I've chosen to start a training program to race in my first triathlon. The physical demands make me feel like a soldier again, but thats another blog topic! This blog, "Tri The Race", will chronicle my efforts, successes, failures and realizations had along the way. Warning: It's not always going to be pretty, but if you stick with me, I think together we can do something special. So I ask again, will you join me?