Embrace the Pain

This past weekend my friend and teammate Matt S ran the Las Vegas Marathon.  His first.  A few days before the race Matt texted me that he was suffering from a calf injury and was questioning his prospects of finishing (he said for sure that he would start – I didn’t tell him that once you start you pretty much have to finish as there isn’t a sag wagon picking up

Darryl showing a good suffer face

stragglers). 

In his race report Matt noted how I told him to “embrace the pain,” which is true; reading it third hand makes my comment sound kind of cliché or flippant.  I really did mean embrace the pain.  Don’t whine, don’t complain “why me,” instead accept the pain as part of what real living feels like, accept it and move on.
At no other time in human history have so many been allowed such a pain free life.  Physical pain slash suffering is part of being a human on this Earth.  Accept it at face value and move ahead.

I was riding my bike last winter, it was probably around thirty five degrees and raining when a gal pulled alongside in her Escalade.  I noticed the she was wearing a t-shirt.  At what other time in human history could a person travel twenty miles in near freezing rain wearing nothing but a cotton t-shirt.  The window is pretty small.  Nobody ever found enlightenment in an Escalade.

For me pushing myself to physical exhaustion is a way of feeling alive.  A way to know that I’m not sleepwalking through my brief time on this planet.  When you look at it this way physical challenge is something to be sought out, and once found appreciated.  Cherish the suffering for this is when you feel alive.