Do This

There is a song in here somewhere that I plan on developing. I will provide you with the backstory.

Yesterday afternoon as we scrubbed our facility’s floor on hands and knees I mentioned to my co-janitor-in-chief that I was a touch nervous. He, of course asked why I was in such an odd state. In an attempt at brevity I stated that this feels like the day before an Ironman. Eyes raise in response. 

Tomorrow is going to be a long one, I begin, starts off with my usual 0530 spin class, one in which we are currently working our way through another eight-week set of Super Eights - eyes raise again - and after that our Wednesday weightlifting session with Junior - and THEN I am subbing for another class at 0845. Two and a half hours of high-intensity cardio with a lifting session sandwiched between the indoor cycling, I might be a little cooked. The challenge of this definitely had my attention. I was a bit concerned, truth be known. Anxious and maybe a little scared even. 

He then says to me, half kidding I suspect, that I could always fake it. Fake it, in this usage meaning that instead of going all-in on the all-out protocol of the two sessions, I could back off the intensity and no one would be the wiser. I yammered something about that tactic, although a common one, is something that I don’t like to even consider, let along actually do. Why?

Because I have told them (the students in class) that I will never ask something of them that I would be unwilling to do myself. I consider that an important part of leadership. I also regularly use the imagery of present moment awareness as a guide to the appropriate intensity levels available at difficult and challenging segments of a drill, set or session. We specifically train for these golden moments of potential growth. Lastly I consider it a personal challenge to accommodate all these factors together at one time and in one place necessitating the management and supervision of the will to proceed, or cut and run. I enjoy standing on the porch and knocking on the door of that opportunity. To see what I got. To gauge my discipline and desire. To execute a real-time gut check. The old Bring me the Hard. 

So no, I will not fake it. Because I want to see if I can make it. What else is there? Am I going to toss the towel and sacrifice possibly the one trait I value above all others, that of authenticity. A sense of being real. With these as the actual events here are the notes I scribbled this morning at 0400 before the first session:

I DON’T WANT TO FAKE IT

I KNOW I CAN (DO THAT)

I WANT TO MAKE IT 

TO SEE IF I CAN (DO THIS)