Endurance is an old French word

You know the moment.

When some part of you drops out.

Some part of you looks away, gives up, shrugs.

It happens in a millisecond. And it shapes our relationships, our bodies, our work, our deepest beliefs about ourselves and our abilities.

That moment when the conversation heats up.

A disagreement is on the edge of a fight.

A rejection slams creative vision.

The deal falls through.

That last interval, rep, mile of an extreme workout.

The moment you’re standing in front of the pantry or the fridge.

That moment when it’s either the tough, dirty work of all-in, or I don’t have what it takes and I’m not willing to go through the humble work of growing into it. So supposedly greener pastures, or old habits, or numbing in all the ways.

Micro-decisions, that shape us all-in, or that fray our commitments—and more significantly, our sense of our own integrity.

This is what I’m wondering about this summer.

I’m training for Ironman France, on August 26th. It’s about sweat revenge, and curiosity, and friendship with a training and racing partner. 

It can be an obsessive, aggressive, selfish, ego-fest of a season, as can any epic, chosen challenge (200 mile training weeks? That's what this world needs?) Or it can be an excavation of what all of that is rooted in.

Underneath, it’s about those moments. Those micro-decisions.

It’s about endurance. An old French word, as it turns out. 'To solidify.'

It’s about becoming someone shaped for the long-haul. Able to recognize those moments as the juicy, tumultuous, soul-spotlighting STUFF we’re made to rumble with. To recognize them as investments with bone and soul-deep returns, rather than revelations to run or numb from.

That’s what any kind of training, any practice in the richest sense of that word, can become for us: resilience training toward muscular love, toward more ways to drop anchor into the hard moments.

I’ll be sharing the journey here and on Insta. Stay tuned. I would love to hear how you are training toward endurance, resilience, steadfast-ness (God, what a great word. Mashup of old German for ‘taking up space’ and that doubleness of ‘fast’: speedy, and solid). Really. In solidarity, toward solidity.