Patience is something that has never come easily for me. As I sit here writing this today, I know that my left ribcage is going to take at least another week to heal. Even then, it might need a little more time. Yet, I want it to be fine tomorrow so that I can go out and start riding my bike. Patience. I've always had a tendency to want to act on an impulse once I feel confident about it. In fact, I often tell people that many of the major life decisions I've made have occurred in an instant. My recent choice to quit my job literally occurred in a moment. However, in that moment, I knew what I had to do and why I had to do it. When I was swimming at Ironman St. George in 2012 and I'd swallowed water, my calf cramped, the waves were 5 feet up and down, I instantly knew what I needed to do to survive (which was putting one arm in front of the other until I got out of the water).
This is a funny way to talk about patience, by bringing up how I've made decisions in an instant, and acted upon them almost immediately. I guess it goes to show that we get to choose when we'll utilize patience, and it's a judgement call we have to make. If there's a bear chasing you, you don't have time to be patient, but in most other circumstances, you at least have time to stop and ponder. I can come up with numerous ironman analogies, not the least of which are how to respond when you suddenly aren't feeling good during an ironman. The wrong approach is to push forward blindly. The correct approach is to stop and think, and then to slow down, hydrate, fuel and take stock of where you are. My best example of this was at IM Chattanooga a few years ago when I became dehydrated just a mile into the run. I took the next five miles to walk and hydrate, allowing me to run the last 20 miles and have a respectable result.
Patience in life has always been a challenge to me. Wanting to skip the eight grade, which I did. Wanting to graduate high school a year early, which I ultimately chose not to. Compromise becomes an important element of patience, in order to find a middle ground. I ended up taking college courses during my last year of high school and actually failed the only high school class I took during my last quarter (I refused to do any homework, and only took the exams, which I actually did fine on). Did I mention that I had a stubborn streak.
Last week, recovering from my right rib injury, I took it upon myself to do a trail run. My legs felt great, I loved it, until I tripped and fell and injured my left ribcage. Patience might have helped, but I can't ponder what could have been. Now I must patiently wait until I'm ready to resume my training and my rib injury is adequately healed so as not to cause more problems and set me back further. I must be patient.
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