running in storms

before the age of treadmills, the great runners loved to run in the storms - while they were training hard and improving, their weaker opponents were skipping practice and going nowhere.

in real life we don't really have true opponents anymore - the only benchmark is ourselves and our ideals. and since we're so good at moving targets and rationalizing them, we do so, and we end up skipping practice. we first skip a couple sessions. then a couple months. then a couple years.

which is ok of course. until it's years later, and we are so far from our ideals, and we realize we haven't even really tried. and we wonder what the heck happened.