It's a marathon, not a sprint or is it?

Every once in awhile you have to take a step back and think "wow".  Take a long look at life, at the possibilities to come, the things that have gone, wondering what will come, whats next in this great journey we all call life.  I still recall the first day of baseball my freshman year of high school, Coach McHorney saying "twenty years from now no one will care what you batted your senior year".  At the time that didn't make sense but it does now (.411 if we are keeping score though coach). 

In the long run, the little things don't matter, today's problems are yesterday's forgotten memories.  The hard times just a figment of the imagination.  Times when I slip on the diet or skip the last two minutes of a workout seem really upsetting at the time but in the long run don't mean all the much.  Or do they?  In the marathon each step makes up the race, each mile leading to a water station, each water station hydrating you until the finish line. 

After awhile those two missed workout minutes add up, that bad meal sits in your gut for a long time and ruins the next workout.  It all adds up, it all ties together.  Do the work today, it pays off tomorrow. 

Luckily, this training plan has been going well.  Hardly having to miss a workout, the ones I have had to switch around have been made up in one way or another.   The gluten free diet is one of the best decisions I have ever made, making me feel a lot better diabetically (is that a word? it should be) and athletically. 

What am I really getting at here?  What would really make me think of a speech my high school baseball gave?  Graduation is closing in on me, with a Master's degree in Sport Management less than a month away.  Big changes coming in life, ones that will shape my future, my future with Jamie, the future of my diabetes and my racing. 

It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.

-Sir Edmund Hillary

Side note: Since the Aquathlon was cancelled on May 7, I just signed up for the Encinitas Sprint Triathlon.  A nice cold 750 meter ocean swim followed by a 20km bike with a 5km run on Sunday, May 15.  With the training going well for nearly two months now I am really looking forward to getting a good race in before going up to San Francisco for graduation.  Get the competitive juices rolling.