Day 9.162 Number 12,300

You have to commit.

To it.

Can be the exchange of vows, a terse aggressive (and necessary) confrontation, or an exercise regimen. Why are you climbing that hill? You must know the meaning of why.

Why you, why we, do this.

Maybe you were lucky in the gene pool lottery. Perhaps you were gifted a birth with more athletic DNA than hundreds of others, possibly thousands. This happens.

Those of you in this demo (you know who you are - and we do too) have an even greater responsibility than those of us without the running, jumping, powerful chromosomes that propel, fuel and allow superior athletic performance.

You must live up to it. You must use the gift. You have to be better than the rest. You are destined to over-achieve.

Interestingly, this doesn't always happen. The biggest, strongest, fastest don't always win the race.

The question has always been, why not?

Why does an athlete handicapped by lessor raw physical tools sometimes win? How can his be? Mathematics, evolution, logic and science all indicate that it shouldn't.

But it does. All the time. 50% of the time? I don't know, and there are no stats or data available to validate my assertions, but we all know it to be true. It is why we have underdogs.

I will take a flying stab at it this fine morning and suggest that two elements are crucial in analyzing this scenario.

1) Attitude, and,
2) Level of commitment.

Confidence is one of those conditions that cannot be fully measured. But, much like quality, we know it when we see or feel it. Someone even went so far as to suggest that it is ALL ABOUT attitude. Confidence being the progeny of attitude. This is crucial if we are to succeed. At whatever we chose to put in the cross hairs as our dreams and goals. More colloquially stated, we need to kick some ass. That is the spirit all champions embody and embrace.

Your level of commitment. Seriously, when things get rough, as they are sure to do, without the fundamental strength of core, character and commitment, you will use one of the 14,298* excuses currently known to man, and slow down, back off or flat-out quit and go home. We need to employ a 'whatever it takes' attitude. If progress is our goal.

If you don't want to improve you shouldn't be here. Go ahead and use number 14,299 which I am now adding to this ignoble list:

I just don't have the right attitude, self confidence and level of commitment necessary for progress.. Therefore I give up (pass the Mountain Dew and fire up the X-Box).

I had a guy, a nice guy,  tell me in the locker room this morning after another spectacular round of Super Eights that he doesn't do cardio because he is fearful of getting an enlarged heart. Another fear inducing myth. An excuse.

 Number 12,300.

Commit folks.

* I counted them, and have used most.