March on (No Bridge Too Far)

Don't look now but it is March. We are 60 days into it. This thing called 2012. It has been a wild ride so far and I can see no indicators (leading economic or otherwise) to predict anything other. There is work to be done, dust to disrupt and blood to spill. For therein lies the good fight ahead. Because, really, what is training? Preparation for battle. Race readiness. The honing of skills, addition by subtraction. We fine tune the arsenal and work up a strategy. We clean our equipment and study the enemy. We collect intel. We become disciplined and dedicated. We learn to fight, we learn teamwork, we learn about our limits. The chain of command, respect, honor and pride. We become soldiers, mercenaries of movement, capable of delivering a stealthy payload of incredible power with precision and poise. There is no collateral damage. And the warrior does not gloat over his victory, nor cheer at his success. He expects to win. Once EVERYTHING has been properly sequenced and perfected, practiced and refined, honed, sharpened and readied, there can be but one outcome. True, we may lose a few battles, take a few blows to the head, spend some time in rehab, face the belittling and second-guessing of our peers, but if our resolve is pure and our focus clear, the war will end in victory.

Sixty days in. We made some promises to ourselves two months ago. We made oaths and sowed vows. Resolutions were mashed-up. The battles will rage on with or without us. My battle, my event, my proving ground just got a little closer today. It will get one day closer tomorrow. There is no use in planning a surprise attack, I will either be ready (to accomplish my goals) or I will suffer the ignominy of being unprepared.

Today I can get closer. There is a skill I can improve, a muscle I can strengthen, a tactic I can learn. I can control what I eat, what I drink and the lengths and intensities of my workouts and recoveries. I can practice control, balance, awareness and resolve. I will not quit. I will not lose focus, I will not be sidetracked or distracted. I will,

March on.

I have always like this quote from Teddy Roosevelt. Here is a little more of his speech from which the quote was lifted (for eternity).

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. Shame on the man of cultivated taste who permits refinement to develop into fastidiousness that unfits him for doing the rough work of a workaday world. Among the free peoples who govern themselves there is but a small field of usefulness open for the men of cloistered life who shrink from contact with their fellows. Still less room is there for those who deride of slight what is done by those who actually bear the brunt of the day; nor yet for those others who always profess that they would like to take action, if only the conditions of life were not exactly what they actually are. The man who does nothing cuts the same sordid figure in the pages of history, whether he be a cynic, or fop, or voluptuary. There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of great and generous emotion, of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder. Well for these men if they succeed; well also, though not so well, if they fail, given only that they have nobly ventured, and have put forth all their heart and strength. It is war-worn Hotspur, spent with hard fighting, he of the many errors and valiant end, over whose memory we love to linger, not over the memory of the young lord who "but for the vile guns would have been a valiant soldier."