For Every End Comes a New 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.  Like a good movie, an interesting trip or an intriguing book, we hate for them to end but we know they will and we are sad.  It's ok to be sad but we should also feel enriched because we had the opportunity to experience them.  This is how it is with all things in life.

When a phase of our lives come to an end we can be sad and grieve for it, but then we must move forward.   We have to make a decision that we will continue the journey, that is our destiny, even though we are now following a new path.  Sometimes the path is away from unpleasant periods, that we have lived through.  We can be moving away from a bad relationship, being over weight, beating an addiction, like smoking, drinking, even drugs or just leaving a life of limited activity and beginning to move toward health and happiness.  These times we can be happy and comforted that we not only lived through those periods but came away stronger.

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 5K, half marathon or full marathon can be a powerful tool to help us stay focused on moving forward.  Especially for a beginning adult athlete, training for and completing an event can be an amazing rite of passage.  How magical to be recovering from an unpleasant period of life or an addiction and cross the finish line of a distance event. 

Like running away and joining the old 'French Foreign Legion', you go the distance to come to grips with your past life challenges and steel your mind and body to face the next challenges.  Becoming an adult athlete is a positive way to do just that.  A strong body will help us become stronger mentally.  We have our strength and endurance to carry us over the obstacles and to slay our personal demons.

All of us will go through these periods of good and bad and all of them will come to an end.  We grow older, we change jobs, we move, we retire.....the list of changes is endless and also very individual, to each of us.  But if we strive for a life of health, fitness and mental wellness then we can over come whatever life throws at us.

Isn't it time you started thinking about a new challenge?

Thanks for reading

Dave