At the starting line, before the run…

Remember Irresponsibility? 

I was…maybe

After I wrote this particular entry, I actually did something I hadn’t done in probably 35 years – I ran.  Yes, I’ve run before when caught in the rain, or when I needed to get something urgently, but I haven’t run long-distance for, well, nearly forever.  The story is like this:

An old friend of mine called me not that long ago, he said that as he was approaching 40, he felt that sitting still was not good for his health.  He wanted to join me on a trip abroad (the first foreign trip ever). We went on an easy trip to a neighbouring country, and he really enjoyed the experience.  Before I knew it, he had taken his entire family on a week-long back-packing trip to another country, and the entire family loved the event.  So he called and talked about jogging and marathons.  I laughed, then said “Sure, I’ll join you, if I won’t run, then I’ll walk the 10 kms.”  Always be careful what you agree to, because it’s bound to be something you hadn’t really thought through. 

Exhausted but survived…what’s next?

Long story short, we went.  Four kids between the ages of 8 and 16, and four adults, for a mini marathon (10.5km for the adults, 5km for the kids.) I ran.  It was too much to see everybody passing me by as I first started walking, and I suppose the inner competitor took over and had me running. (well, jogging/walking/dragging knuckles on the ground by the end of the course). I am of course paying for it now with muscles that protest at every move, but somehow, it felt wonderful to cross that finish line, accomplishing something I hadn’t thought I was capable of. It was a lot of fun, and I will do it again, as I can’t stand the idea of 10-year-old kids running better than me, and having fun doing it.  So despite my rants about fitness, who knows what you’ll find yourself saying yes to and actually realizing that you should probably have done so a long time ago.

Your Best Chance at Reaching the Age of 100?

In the last post I spoke about a highly sophisticated engine, and the better you take care of it, the longer it should last – I am not saying that we would all like to live to be a few hundred years old, but certainly getting into our 80s or 90s with a pretty fit body and a keen mind is something that should be achievable. I certainly don’t have the miracle that will let you live to be 100 or more – go look elsewhere and waste your cash on shysters if you want. The truth is that we are likely to pass away for any variety of reasons before we reach 100. There are things you can do before you get there and enjoy the process in the meantime. I’ve said my piece about food, and I’ve had my rant about fitness, just remember that lying on a couch watching tv and slurping alcohol while sucking on a cigarette will pretty much guarantee that you wont reach 60.

I am hoping that by reading these posts, you will get a bit of a boost, some ideas perhaps, even a swift kick in the butt, to get up and get going on something other than office, home, tv, sleep, repeat endlessly.

Dante’s Divine Comedy

Feed the Body, Feed the Mind

Strange as it may sound, fitness isn’t simply or singly about body, it’s also about mind, and as much as it’s important to take in the right kind of food (most of the time), it’s also important that you feed your mind – there’s enough evidence of atrophy in that area, witness several elections around the world.

The first post I made in this blog mentioned my one-year stay in Canada to complete a Master’s Degree. I was by no means the oldest student on campus, there were several others who were completing not only Bachelor degrees, but also those working on PhD studies, or just picking up classes because they felt like it and they could. I know, there are a lot of professional development programs out there that we can get certificates from; short courses for this that or the other thing. That long list of certificates looks really impressive on a resume, but were those really the things that interested you, or were they simply a means to an end: a raise, a promotion?

While in South America, I lugged around a paperback copy of Dante’s “Divine Comedy”; not necessarily your average travel/leisure reading, but it was one of the books that had been on my shelf for a long time, and it was the thinnest of the bunch. Fault me if you like, I’m a literary scholar, so maybe a little nerdy in the non-tech way. But the point I am trying to make is that whether you like to read car engine manuals, psychology treatises, or some obscure lesson on how to tie a perfect knot, it is important to stimulate the mind and to diminish the amount of time spent on checking out things online (except my blog); whether that’s the latest posts complete with pictures of somebody’s lunch, or a 140-character rant about some foreign nation’s interference in domestic affairs. Grab that printed thing, find yourself a comfortable spot, and read your heart out, your mind will thank you and remain all the sharper for it.