“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means” suggests the incomparable Many Patinkin as Iñigo Montoyo.
I read *Can’t Hurt Me* this week. It’s not just one word. I don’t think the entire book means what the author thinks it means.
David Goggins, the author, had an abusive, criminal, violent father, grew up lonely, marginalized, and overlooked. He developed a stutter and suffered alienating learning differences. In spite of—or perhaps because of—these deficits, he became successful at competitions. He is one of a handful of people on the planet to have become a Navy Seal *and* an army ranger. He suffered terribly through cold water, sleep deprivation, poor nutrition, and psychological torture. He came out the other side in extraordinary physical and emotional health.
Which is totally cool.
Because no one is more sensitive than I to the exquisite otherness of mile 20. “The race begins here” one of my running buddies remarked as we matched each other stride for painful stride 6.2 miles away from our bananas and oatmeal raisin cookies. Long-time readers will know how much I enjoy participating in and talking about ultra distance events. And I won’t pretend that I felt anything other that pride when I read that David Goggins and I have both run a marathon at about seven minutes and 15 seconds per mile.
But the thrust of his book was that anyone can achieve these results and that everyone should. Everyone should sharpen their mind, overcome obstacles, put away excuses, run through the pain. Everyone should commit to their utmost. Everyone should train hard enough to win every competition.
Which sounds great, and I was right there with him, climbing the mountains, tromping through the mud, shivering in the cold, swimming in the dark, never giving up—until it occurred to me that not everyone can be first.
I also couldn’t help but notice that if you are training at 4 o’clock in the morning, running 110 miles per week, biking hour after hour, you may be able to complete the most grueling race on Earth – – the Badwater ultramarathon – – but you are certainly not going to have time to be much of a family person. As perhaps David’s three divorces will attest. I will make no mention of his relationship with his children because, in the 320 page book, he doesn’t mention it either.
Stated another way, somebody is going to have the record for enduring the most pain, the most skin peeling off their hands, the most spasming biceps, doing the most pull ups (something north of 4000) in 24 hours. That somebody is not going to be you.
Nor is that somebody going to be someone you know. Nor is that somebody for darn sure going to be one of your kids.
Indeed, “Wojciech Sobierajski managed 4,083 pull-ups in 24 hours to eclipse the previous record of 4,030 held by David Goggins, an American motivational speaker and retired U.S. Navy SEAL.”
Because world records are only borrowed, never owned. World records are like library books. You have to return them so that someone else can have them for a while.
Whereas a healthy, loving relationship with your beloved children is something you can keep until your final breath when you might reflect that “nobody on his deathbed ever wished he had spent more time running through the mud.“
Or at the risk of making this personal essay even more personal, I am pleased to have completed a few ultramarathons, but I am even delighted to mention that I won’t be sending a blog next week because I will be visiting with my adult children.
My kids and I are going to shoot the breeze, share some meals, play a few rounds of Parcheesi, look at some old family photos, maybe even go out and run a few miles. *Connecting* with your kids. That’s a word that does mean what you think it means.
Thank you for reading. See you in two weeks.
