After you've done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over.

~Alfred Edward Perlman, New York Times, 3 July 1958

"If we cling to belief in God, we cannot likewise have faith, since faith is not clinging but letting go." -Alan Watts

PS - if I were rich... I would do a lot of things - but I would REALLY want to be able to do that.

Singed hair and mile-high memories.

GO HERE to see what REALLY happened at Tough Mudder.

"Why?

If you're not making much progress, it's time to give yourself a boost.

Remind yourself why. Remind yourself why you chose the path you are on.

Remind yourself why you selected the priorities that you now follow. Perhaps it is time to focus on a new destination. Or perhaps you could simply use a good, clear reminder of what's truly important to you.

Ultimately, it’s the same thing. It can be all too easy to get caught up and dragged down by the day-to-day business of life.

Take time to regularly give yourself the benefit of the big picture."

~OPT - James Fitzgerald, male winner of the 1st CrossFit Games.

So. Somewhere in between the starting line and the fire at the Tough Mudder I got stuck at the end of our line. This, I tell myself, is an ok thing as my feet were not-so-nimbly attempting to miss impalement a la rock through the trails on Bear Creek Mountain. It is also ok because (I imagine) Anna Marra was busy bumble bee-ing her way ahead with Greengas (who surely humbled herself intentionally to walk up the 179 degree "hills"). Additionally, I believe Alyson Terranova was on speed. It's all good though because Ann's on steroids and DT is definitely stealing some kind of GH from Big DL.

If none of the above means anything to you - I hope you don't live near me... because it should. ;)

In the middle of the whole run there was a period of time where everyone was trekking through mud and stones in middle of the woods. The air was bright. The trees were long. And the pace was steady. There weren't that many rocks and I wasn't that tired. There were no more logs to slug uphill, and no more muddy pebbles to grate my knees on. It was just me and the sound of my breath.

As with so many hikes, and so many trails... you spend most of your time thinking about nothing but the next step. You go and go and go until suddenly you're at the top and you think, how did I get here? The funny thing about this thought process is that it's actually pretty involuntary. You're thinking but you're not REALLY thinking... The mind gets a break.

I think it was Annie Dillard who said that the key to getting through a hike was to do this. You never look to the summit. You may look behind you - but never to the summit. The next step is the only one and you can't hate it because it's right there in front of you. There's not even enough time to hate it. This is how you SHOULD hike, she said.

All that said, there's a time and a place to sit still and look around.

Up the first steep hill, Greengas and Anna climbed over some Marines or something to land at the top before I did. Alyson, in true Terranova fashion, steadily aimed from point to point and made it with little rest and little wear. I, on the other hand, took my grand old time.

Because really how many times in a month am I actually on a mountain?

Since sweat, mud, water, and heat leave you with very little dignity, I took to the bear crawl and grappled my way up the mountain. My form was probably pretty horrible but it was more fun to climb and stop, climb and stop...than desperately wish for someone to roll on top of me and take me to the bottom of the mountain so I could opt out (as so many signs mockingly petitioned us to do).

At a couple points on the hill and trails though, I took the time to very consciously admire the growing view around me - the expanse of air between me and the forest below, the kaleidoscope of green taking over the sky.

Do you ever feel an innate gratitude for being alive? Like an almost autonomous love for a moment? I do. I feel it some mornings when I'm given pause on the train at 520am, some days when the air smells like an olfactory love note to the places I've been. I felt that same gratitude even in the midst of my infamous love-hate relationship with exercise-induced pain. You know I felt that gratitude after being partially scalded by the fire at Tough Mudder!

I felt it in Denver too - tasting the most amazing food ever, witnessing my friend's wedding and the way the mountains just blended right into her smile. Talking to an old friend in such an open way I thought my heart might just start literally depicting itself upon my sleeve. I felt it flying cloud to cloud in the sky while reading a book that another friend has given me to take in.

Here is something I am learning about this thing that I have always thought was a good thing:

"I would like to learn, or remember, how to live. I come to Hollins Pond not so much to learn how to live as, frankly, to forget about it. That is, I don't think I can learn from a wild animal how to live in particular...but I might learn something of mindlessness, something of the purity of living in the physical senses and the dignity of living without bias or motive."

-Annie Dillard

I used to think that mindlessness was a big goal for me, a relieving thing. I thought it might be good for me NOT to take a step back and acknowledge the me that was looking at me - for ONCE! But now that I've kind of done it again... I admit - it feels good. It feels a bit like making it out of that fire alive!

What I'm learning is that we aren't pure - there are very few instances where we are "without bias or motive". Instead we are speckled all over with want, need, love, hate, pride, better intentions, shame, fear, and jealousy. The real evil is to pretend you aren't. The sly thing is that the more you think you're in the clear, the more you're not. (Observe Exhibit E-rin)

The key, I guess, is to notice it, to notice that you are bound to want to look back, you are bound to want to look forward and decide what you will do about it. You are equally bound to rock on ahead without a care in the world for a while.

In the midst of your striving, don't count it a selfish or self-possessed thing to need to take a look around and see where you are.

Furthermore, friends... I really don't think we should deny where we are.

Practically speaking, I was talking with someone the other day and stumbled upon the realization that I really begin to feel free of food when I finally realized that whether I ate a ton and gained 50lbs. or did everything pretty right and lost 15lbs. that just wasn't who I am. It was what I was doing and sure it was either making me look or feel a certain way, but it isn't, it wasn't, and it never will be WHO I am.

I think we spend a lot of time trying to craft an image (HELLO MY NAME IS FACEBOOK), trying to add 50 bajillion pounds to our deadlift (yup, I'm takin it personally!), and/or attempting to realize this crazy image of ourselves that we have in our heads.

We chase the damn thing much like a dog and its tail. Maybe even a french bull-dog...with a teeny tiny tail that proves impossible to get. :)

And really, it pays to sit up, pop a squat and assess your surroundings. It pays to think about whether you're saying one thing and doing another. You might need a moment (count 'em, A) to be brutally honest with yourself about just how ridiculous some of the things you expect from yourself really are. Or maybe, you need a moment to say, "Ok - this is the ninety millionth time I've said I'm gonna change and I still haven't... now, why's that?" I find myself resenting that I don't have C when I really haven't ever pictured what A and B in the lovely equation A + B = C is. Hmm...

Don't get me wrong. Doing is great. Doing gets things done (duh). But mindlessness is not the only way to be. Some people need to look back.