Are You Strange?

It seems that I forget, since I have a lot of people around me who value and enjoy fitness, I forget that the things I enjoy are considered strange to a lot of people.

Some people express amazement when they find out I just did a 7 mile run. They really don't know what to say when I tell them I've done as much as 14. Fourteen miles as a longest run doesn't even get me ready to run a marathon, but to some it seems otherworldly. They react in disbelief when I tell them I'm training for a Half Ironman triathlon. People are in shock that I can run 11 miles in sandals that are just a piece of rubber with a string attached.

While I am proud of these things, and I was among those in disbelief just a few years ago, I have come to realize that we as a society have set the bar pretty low.

Things that at certain points in history were considered normal activity levels for a day are now unbelievable.
Things that we once had to do to survive are now unthinkable. Things that most of us should be able to do are considered above and beyond human capacity.

So I challenge you now, to start redefining impossible. Realize the power within you, take it step by step and move forward. Challenge yourself, do something you didn't think you could. Get up out of that chair and go for a walk, over time, turn the walk into a jog, then a run. Enter a 5K, a half marathon.

Lift a weight, then a heavier one, work your way up. Explore the power within you, become stronger, fitter, healthier. Get hooked on health, get your high from sweat and hard work. Change your perspective.

You don't have to become a marathoner, you don't have to do what my brother did. He got rid of his car, bought a bike, and lost 130 pounds. He biked to my house recently for a visit, 150 miles in one day, but you don't have to do that, just get up, walk fast enough that you breathe a little harder, do it for 30 minutes, 5 days per week.

Do it for yourself, do it for your loved ones, do it and change the way you see the world. I've run half marathons, that doesn't make me amazing, it just brings me a little closer to the way we were designed to be. We weren't meant to ride around in cars and eat food handed to us from a window.

Get up, move, eat healthy foods. Just get up and decide to be a little strange.

“Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary. Impossible is nothing.”               --Muhammad Ali