Things I've Learned SINCE I Learned Things Last Saturday

Reposted from http://www.avonwalk.org/goto/Paul_Willett
Originally posted May 6, 2010

One of the best things that I'm getting (so far) from of my participation and training for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer is a growing understanding that what I'm getting out of the process is not what I expected it's much more, but in ways that I never anticipated.

Saturday I wrote about how I need to plan better & stick to it. Sunday I got up early and took off on my four-mile walk for the day, walking from home to the restaurant where my wife and I usually have our Sunday morning breakfast. It didn't take long before I got bored with the route that I had planned. For one thing, it was very close to a big part of the route that I had walked on Saturday. Been there, done that. More importantly, it was along major streets which, while they will get you there in the most direct fashion, are noisy, crowded with traffic, and tend to be dull as dishwater as far as the scenery goes.

So what did I do? Right! Off into the side streets again, ignoring the hard-earned lesson of Saturday. Surely it couldn't happen two days in a row! This little side street heads off in about the right direction it's got to get back to the main road over there someplace, right? Once again we find our brave hero, an additional ? mile and fifteen minutes later, now going in the wrong direction, finally getting back to a major cross street. But this time the choices are even more interesting. Backtrack another ten minutes to the right (away from the restaurant) or go over that really big hill that's suddenly there on the left?

As I was trudging up the hill it finally became clear to me that Saturday's lesson wasn't quite correct. While it's important to have the basics of the route planned (let's not turn a 6-mile walk into a 60-mile walk by accident!) it's just as important (if not more so) to have fun on the walk. If that means an "adventure" to avoid a boring "walk-to-be-walking" experience turns a 6-mile walk into a 7-mile walk, then so be it!

I got questioned by my wife about my methods after Saturday's "adventure". She wanted to know why, once I had done my six miles and had gotten myself off to somewhere I hadn't expected to be and I was a couple of miles from home still, why hadn't I called her to come pick me up? Especially since I had sore feet and blisters on top of it? I believe my daughter used the word "stubborn" to describe my handling of the situation. My wife may have used more blunt terms, and really didn't seem to comprehend my answer.

I explained that I hadn't called because I wasn't at my destination, i.e., home, and I wasn't hurt or experiencing some other emergency. The goal for Saturday wasn't simply to walk six miles and then call for a ride home. It was to be a six-plus mile walk, but when I made decisions that led the day's walk to be eight-plus miles, that's OK. That's a good thing!

Sure, my feet hurt and I was tired and hot and sweaty. That's not an emergency, that's an annoyance. What was important to me was getting my walk for the day done on my terms, and that meant getting to the final destination IN SPITE OF THE ANNOYANCES AND DISCOMFORT. Yes, it was hard and painful. But being hard isn't a reason to quit and being in pain isn't necessarily a reason to stop. Sometimes it's the reason to finish anyway. Didn't President Kennedy say something about that when he sent us on the way to the moon in the 60's?

So there's what I'm learning now as the walks become longer, and while I might be tired & sore when I get home, THAT'S A GOOD THING. This training and experience and adventure isn't turning out to be a wonderful thing for me DESPITE being difficult and painful it's wonderful BECAUSE it's sometimes difficult and painful, and because I'm getting it done anyway and overcoming those difficulties and pains.

A guy at the gym has a T-shirt that says, "Pain is just the weakness leaving your body". I've gotta get me one of them. In pink. This is the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, after all!