Putting your head into making your legs deliver
A drinking and dancing incident ended up in the emergency ward where most parts of the right knee meniscus had to be removed. Sheer fact, shit happens. But after a few more years of living wild it somehow grew on me and some kind of maturity, matured. Or maybe it was bordom. The pubs, clubs, bars and beers was nothing new. Same old, same old.
One thing lead to another and suddenly I had signed up for not one but two races. One was Vätternrundan, a 300 kilometer bike race and the other was Broloppet, a half marathon from the capital of Denmark, down in a tunnel and over a bridge, crossing the borders to Sweden.
Of course if was impossible. Not only did I have a busted knee, I am also suffering from asthma which, according to my doctor, makes a lot of physical demanding things a lot worse to not say impossible and I had spent most of my days at the office and most nights at parties. In short, overstating the obvious, not much of my body or mind was set for any type of physical challenge. Good thing that I don’t listen to much to people telling me what I can’t do, I more often try to identify the problem and break it down into manageable tasks. So I started training. And wasn’t able to do anything or at least nothing more then a 300 meters jog, which really is nothing when your aim is a half marathon and a 300 kilometer bike race. Nothing worked. Not feet, limbs, legs, stomach, mind, heart, lungs nothing. So I used all my project management, IT operations, task/issue/problem solving and started the 300 meter jog again, and again and after a few weeks I manages to jog around a small lake close to where I lived. Yay, over 3 kilometer in one run. Things where progressing.
Focus and mental endurance slowly build some physical capability.
Really putting ones head into carrying out the task at hand and making ones leg to cash in the checks ones ego had written (yes, signing up for the half marathon was a wager, the bike race was another story).
After less then two months I managed to complete the half maraton in under 2 hours. The mental struggle of keeping the legs moving during the race and the ocean of happiness that swept over me after the 1 hour 55 minute exercise was an experience that made it’s mark and opened up new views onto life. One of my best moments!
The bike race might have been even better. I failed! Which later on proved to be a great experience that can make you go further the previously imaginable.
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