"Yeah We Bad"

In the movie Stir Crazy, Richard Pryor, walking into prison, "Yeah we bad". To show the big mean looking inmates that they we not guys to be messed with. For my fellow road warriors going to DisneyWorld next week, that's the attitude to take with you. The training is pretty much done and the rest is just getting it done.

The Disney events are the bad distances, the 13.1 mile half marathon, the 26.2 mile full marathon and the insane Goofy challenge where you do both. We go to challenge our selves and to slay some personal demons of self doubt.

Going into these races is kind of like going to war, that's why I call my fellow athletes road warriors. When we first made the decision to do these distances, they seemed impossible. But like troops preparing for battle we trained our bodies. We made ourselves strong and tough. We ate better and slept better when we could. We prepared for our coming battle.

That battle looms now just before us. We leave next week to take our place on the field of honor. We bring with us only what we can carry into the fight. Our Gels and special electrolyte mixes. Our high tech uniforms and foot gear chosen carefully. Nothing escapes our pre race check list, Body Glide, nails trimmed, throw off clothes to keep us warm till the start.

Now is the time to take a final inventory of our race attire and our supplies. Florida can be hot, cold or anywhere in between. Nothing worse than standing for hours freezing before the start and being stiff and tired from shivering before you even start. So like a good troop be prepared to do battle despite the weather.

The main weapon you take into battle is your attitude. Go in knowing you will win, not dwelling on your fears and doubts. Your work is done now is the time for the glory of victory.

Thanks for reading

Rambling Panda

Happy New Year!

This is the time of year when everyone is saying Happy New Year. We really mean it to, we want everyone to have a better year than they had last year, we especially want that for ourselves. Does the year changing really mean anything? It doesn't unless we use the change as a catalyst to spark action.

We can make resolutions and we can want those changes, but unless we put our wants into goals and the take action to meet those goals we are going to have basically the same year as we did last year. We have to believe the changes we want are possible and we have to believe we have the power to make them happen.

We have to be realistic also. I'm going to win the lottery and be set for life is a nice daydream but it ain't happening. We have to take positive action if we are going to see gain. Just wanting and dreaming will get us no where unless we use those dreams as a blue print for the path we will take. We have to have some control over what we want to change to. We can do things like be positive, lose weight or train for a sport. We can become a better person.

We can also make changes that make our lives better, like patching up friendships or extending your hand in friendship to a co worker who you have had a tense relationship with. It's never to late to mend old hurts. You can ease some guilt by getting back in touch with family members you haven't kept up with or call the friends you haven't talked to for a long time.

The list of things you can do is endless, you just need to think about what in your life needs changing and get started.

Thanks for reading.

Rambling Panda

Where is home?

Divorce is one of those times in your life when you should reevaluate yourself and become reacquainted with who you are and where you are headed. The old saying, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life", is never more true.

I started with a cleansing. Except for my clothes, everything is new. I don't have a lot yet and I'm ok with that. I don't want anymore baggage than I can carry. When y0u have lots of stuff you have to have a place to put it and that reduces how I can define home. We all tend to call home the place where our stuff is located. I'm wondering if maybe that thinking is to restrictive for me right now.

I'm going to try to start thinking of home is broader terms. Could home be a general area that I feel comfortable in like the mountains or the coast? Could it be a town or city where I feel comfortable living. Of course with the economy the way it is home at least for a while is where my job is.

For the first time in a great many years I'm without a companion. I hope that is a temporary condition. Could it be that home is where not only I but this future life mate feel the most comfortable? Because when you get down to the basics of human survival, the place you belong is next to that life mate, where ever that may be. We are after all a nomadic species. So that even as we wonder we are never lost because home is right next to us.

Completely on the flip side is feeling that a place to call my own can be where I belong. Unfortunately a place you can truly call your own is only an abstract term as all the people who lost their homes because of the current economy and the back lash of the run a way inflation in the housing market, found out.

I'm leaning toward the belief that life is a journey and being beside the person you most want to be is a good working definition of home.

Thanks for reading.

Rambling Panda

Moving On

It's been a while since I've been ready to write but I know that for me getting back to writing is part of healing. I reach out with my writing, putting my thoughts and feelings out there to be shared. That's necessary because it's normal to feel a hit to your self esteem when your life makes unpleasant changes regardless of how necessary they were.

I decided today that it's time to evaluate a lot of things. My self, my dreams and my reality. I'm looking first at me and what I need to change. First off I need to get back to quality training and healthy eating. Both have suffered this year, I've done more fried food this year than the last 8 years combined. I wasn't sleeping well and that has fortunately changed. I sleep good now as well as take a nap after my workouts whenever possible, (now doesn't that make me sound old). These are my easy changes to make, I have absolute control over them. My cravings will get in the way but if I'm serious about moving on they will be tolerable.

My dreams are such that I can still realize them, it will just be with a different companion. Of course the search for another will be a top priority for the next months. I'm looking for a new relationship with as little baggage as possible. I suppose there are people out there without a ton of baggage they are lugging around. I'm not looking for Barbie or anyone close, just a good solid lady to share my life and dreams.

My dreams are to buy another small house next year and live there till I can retire in 8 years and then spend a few years traveling looking to see if there is anywhere I/we would rather be. Then moving there if that paradise does exist.

Current reality is that I really can't complain about anything. I have a good job and hopefully the economy won't cause the company to close smaller stores like the one I work at. This day and age one never knows. I'm alone but only as far as a live in companion, since I have several amazing friends that watch out for me. I also have a wonderful son that is keeping tabs on me.

So all in all I have to say the future is bright. I will be glad to fast forward a year and see where life has taken me.

Thanks for reading.

Rambling Panda

Singular Wellness

Well it appears that I'm going to get some first hand experience in coping with the stress of being single. Doesn't it seem that everywhere you go people seem to always be coupled up? Well right now I contemplating where someone goes on vacation when they are single. I'm a social person and like to share experiences and memories.

I'm a big fan of Disney but just can't imagine doing that alone. I love the 3D Movies there, The Great Movie ride, Spaceship earth and many many others but they are things to do with another not by yourself. Or are they? Last week I had a desire to go to the theater and share popcorn. Again not ready to do something like that alone and at my age it seems everyone I know is married.

I suppose as time goes on I'll meet other single people and acquire other single friends. Having been married for the great majority of my adult life I have to relearn how to make friends with other single people and how to ask them to do things with me.

I am learning that I have a lot more freedom to do things when and how I want to. I take naps when I feel like it and eat when I'm hungry rather than just at regular times. I get up early to train and then go home for a snack and a nap before work. After work since I work evenings is usually just a snack, check mail on the computer, do a few quick posts and off to bed.

During the first week I had a couple of beers each night before bed to help me get sleepy but that is long since past and I'm sleeping good. I wake without an alarm every morning and then crawl out of bed for coffee and a bagel to wake up with before I'm off to the days workout.

But each day gets better and each day I get mentally stronger again so I should have everything figured out soon, it's not like I'm the first person to ever be single.

Thanks for reading.

Rambing Panda

For all things there is an end and a beginning

For all things there is a beginning and an end, that's the way of our lives and our world. No matter how good, bad or indifferent all things will end and then something new will begin. It's like a good movie, we hate for it to end but we know it will and we are sad that it does but enriched because we had the opportunity to experience it.

A phase of my life has come to an end and I'm sad for it but from that I must move forward. I have made a decision that moving forward means doing Bad Water in 2011. Bad Water is a 135 ultra endurance race across Death Valley. It's considered the toughest endurance event in the world. I'm going to try to badger a couple of friends into doing it with me. One friend has to turn his life back to the positive side and needs this as much as do I.

One of the reasons we get into doing distance events in the first place is to put a positive goal out there in front of us. A goal to finish a half or full marathon or to complete the Goofy at Disney are all goals that I've used to stay focused on moving forward. I've done those and now I need a new challenge. That challenge will be the Bad Water race.

The people I will ask to do this with me will more than likely, at least at first, think I need to be locked up for my own safety but I believe this is the next step on the road to my destiny. I do think it's become time. Like the old French Foreign Legion, you join to forget the past and live for the moment. I need to put the past behind me and learn to live for the moment again.

Thanks for reading

Rambling Panda