. . . . It sounds so simple.  If you believe it, you can make it come true.  Yet visualization has so many more layers than simply wishing something into existence.  It is a path that, with preparation and dedication, can evolve from a blurry vision to a moment of pristine clarity that becomes an out of body experience.  Look no further than my marathon journey to see how this plays out . . .

As I sat down to write the update on my marathon journey, the space I was in as I reflected on these past few weeks was filled with highs and lows.  Confidence became insecurity.  Optimism turned into doubt.  It felt as if my dreams were better described as fantasy.  I’m not here to be overly dramatic about this.  In fact, I find this emotional roller coaster to be a positive thing – and one that comes with my dedication to a life of fitness.

Before my career as a lawyer, I was an aspiring screenwriter.  The rest of that story is for another day, except to say that, if I was scripting a story of someone running a marathon, it would probably go something like this.  The protagonist of the story is someone who overcame significant obstacles to be able to try to achieve a long-held dream of running a marathon.  Upon seemingly overcoming every hurdle in his way, he trained hard for race day and continued to improve day after day as the race approached.  It appeared that not only would his dream of running a marathon happen, but he would run it faster than he ever imagined.  But, naturally, a plot-twist occurs, and the protagonist faces a big setback – one that puts the marathon in jeopardy.  Then, the ending can go several different ways . . .

This is not my typical marathon post.  I’m not going to provide an overall update of my training since the last post.  And I’m not going to include the journal of my training below this – that will wait for the next post.  I wasn’t even going to blog this week, but I want to share this moment I’m going through in real time as I struggle – both physically and mentally – to deal with pain.

In the end, these two weeks can be summed up in three words . . . I do me!  I’ve reached a point where I’ve learned how to get more out of a marathon training program by making it my marathon training program.  At times, that means taking the days I need to stay fresh.  Other times it means learning how to push through it when I’m not.  It means working in areas of life that define who I am while understanding that this goal of 26.2 is just one of those areas.  For each one of us, the calculus is different.  Only you know what it is for you.  And only I can know what it is for me.

“It is being here now that is important.  There’s no past and there’s no future.  Time is a very misleading thing.  All there is ever, is the now.”  - George Harrison

Sharing lessons from my journey over the course of Legally Fit has allowed me to reflect in ways I might not otherwise have done.  I’ve reached a deeper level of soul searching.  That’s not to say that it takes writing a blog to discover what’s within one’s own self, but for me, it’s been the vehicle.  Still, there are times when I find that I never even asked myself the obvious.  That happened recently when I was asked a question that I had never been asked before – and somewhat surprisingly not asked myself. . . “What’s the most important thing you’ve learned on this journey?”  For a minute, I froze.  I was so accustomed to far more specific questions such as “What’s your workout routine?” or “What’s your diet?”  So, I was dumbfounded at this simple question.  After a brief pause, I knew the answer, but before I share it, I’ll go deeper into where it comes from.

A year ago, I turned 50 and celebrated by, among other things, jumping out of a plane.  At the time, I said it seemed like a good way to celebrate every decade and that I was good until 60.  That feeling lasted about a week before I realized that once a year was a much better idea.  So, the plan as I turned 51 this past week was to jump again.  It was an ambitious plan, as I scheduled it for Saturday afternoon following my 12-mile marathon training run.  It was made more ambitious by the fact that this past week was my most tiring work week in over a year with about five hours of sleep a night for five straight nights.  My thought was simply that, if I was going to burn the candle at both ends to get this all in, I couldn’t wait until it was much later into my training when rest would be even more essential.  And of course, it was my birthday!  (In case you forgot.)  Well, as I’ve written before . . . man plans, God laughs.

One of the mental tactics I’ve used during workouts for some time is to break them down into percentages in the middle of the grind.  For example, if I’m in a 45-minute Peloton class, then 15 minutes in, I tell myself that I’m one-third through it.  I continue that at various intervals throughout the workout to make it feel shorter.  One of the most important ways to use that is with running.  A 10-mile run is easier when I think of it in segments.  After five miles, all I have to do is do that same thing once more.  When I have two miles left, having only 20 percent remaining makes it feel like I am already near the finish line.  But this percentage thing can apply not only to a single workout, but also to a long-term training plan such as what I’m in the middle of right now in working towards the NYC Marathon.

Today’s post — my 50th to date — is a short reflection on why I’m doing this.  By this, I mean why am I blogging?  Why do I share the story of my journey?  I find it’s important to know our “why” for anything we do.  It reveals our intentions and keeps us focused on having the right motivation.  Even as I have discussed some of my most vulnerable moments, most of what I’ve been posting here has been the best life I’ve ever lived.  I do my best when sharing those moments to put it in the larger context where things weren’t always that way.  Even so, I often worry about coming across as bragging – or worse yet, insensitive to those out there who may not feel like they are in this same space right now.  That’s the last thing I want.  In fact, my why is quite the opposite of that.

Over the course of my marathon training, I’ll be providing many updates.  Sometimes, they’ll be short weekly posts and others may be longer updates of several weeks.  The key is that I’ll share the space I am in at each point in this journey towards running 26.2. Over this past week, that space went a bit back and forth.

Week two of marathon training had a different feeling than week one.  While the start of training felt like the marathon was getting close with only 20 weeks to go, my mindset shifted in week two to the realization that I still had 19 more weeks of this massive commitment remaining.  Right now, while the marathon is the destination, my immediate goal is to give the training program everything I’ve got.  This week, it set in how daunting that is – especially as New York was hit with insane heat.  All I can say is that, for a couple days, it was really, really, hot.  It reminded me of Eddie Vedder’s speech at this Pearl Jam concert I went to at Fenway Park in 2018.  I’ll let Ed take care of the explicit language that better describes the heat . . .

For those who have no idea what it is like to train for a marathon, all I can say is, “join the club!”  Neither do I.  But this past week marked 20 weeks until the NYC Marathon – a key milestone where training programs officially begin.  Now,   a week into my first ever marathon training program, I am filled with countless thoughts flowing through my head.  I want to do my best to share it all as I go through this unfamiliar process.  No matter whether I succeed or fail by the end of this program, I think we are all sure to learn something.

If your friend jumps off a cliff, would you?  Most of us are familiar with the saying, but purely as a hypothetical way of teaching kids a lesson, right?  Well, if so, parents you might want to make sure your kids stop reading right now – or read for yourself first and decide.

When I ran my first half marathon in January, I missed my time goal by only a few seconds.  That was no problem, especially since I think it’s good to set goals that lie just on the cusp of achievable or not.  The concerning part of that race was the fact that I crossed the finish line barely able to go any farther.  It was a tough run, on a difficult course, under the tiring circumstances of just having returned from Antarctica two days earlier.  Overall, I was proud of what I accomplished, but I left the race feeling like I was nowhere close to the 26.2 miles I’ll need to run at the marathon in November.  Even though I had made it half the distance, I didn’t feel like I was halfway towards my goal.

As I look back on my journey, one of the biggest keys to its success thus far is overcoming fear. Fear of trying, fear of failing, and even fear of succeeding.

When I recently told a friend that tomorrow marks the one-year anniversary of when I launched Legally Fit, she said, “Wow, that went by fast!”  My response, “Not for me, it didn’t!”  This is my 45th post of the year – far more than I ever imagined when I set out to do this.  It added a whole new layer to my life – all while working my day job as a lawyer, maintaining a very active fitness routine, and living life to the fullest.  And as I reflect back to where it all began, it so appropriately started with my Win the Day post.

Of all that I’ve shared over the past year, there’s no method, concept, or mantra that I find more important to the success of my journey than winning the day.  I really do ask myself every day what it takes to win it.  Sometimes I win and sometimes I lose.  But focusing on what winning the day means each day is more about being in the frame of mind for success than it is about the actual wins or losses.  I win more days because I define it at the beginning of the day than I would if I simply looked back afterwards and only then thought for the first time about what winning meant.

There’s deep meaning in the name of this blog – Legally Fit.  The big picture is that it felt like a name that defines my journey – one of a lawyer who managed to change his life from sedentary to active all in the context of a busy work schedule.  At its core, this is a fitness blog where I share all that I have learned on my path to a heathy lifestyle.  But the lessons in here speak to much more than advice on working out and eating. They come from years of struggling with balance between work and life.  And that is why the very first word in the name is about work.  Everything I’ve accomplished or failed at in this fitness journey is in the context of managing my career as a lawyer.

When we discuss the keys to our success whether in work, life, or fitness, we often mention concepts like hard work, dedication, and commitment.  No doubt each of those is at the top of the list, but one factor that is equally valuable yet often overlooked is social connection.  In each aspect of life, the relationships we make can play a big role in our success. 

In an earlier post, I wrote, “Let go of people who don’t help you grow.”  Though it may seem so, that post was not about abandoning relationships, but rather about creating space in our lives to develop the right ones.  The benefits for work are obvious.  Mentoring, teaching, and promotion are all areas that stem from social connections.  The benefits in life are probably even more apparent.  Social connections bring us friendship, love, and fun.  But when it comes to physical wellbeing, perhaps the need for social connections is a bit less clear.  While much of my fitness journey has come from a dedication to spending countless hours isolated while lifting weights, running, swimming, or doing numerous other activities to improve my strength and overall health, I could not have achieved half of what I have done without my fitness community.

Much of my fitness focus this past week has been shaped by one event . . . Rory McIlroy won the Masters! Congrats, Rory!  It’s been a long time coming, and of course, it couldn’t come any other way than the most stressful golf I’ve ever watched.  An appropriate ending for your dream of winning the career Grand Slam and achieving golf immortality.  Reaching your dream – especially in the way you did it over these years, and over the Masters weekend – taught me, and so many of us to dare to dream!

One of the themes I wrote about last week was trying to get better today – every day.  But let’s be real – that’s easier said than done.  In fact, it’s virtually impossible mostly because we’re human.  We fail, we have setbacks, and we just have some bad days.  But even when we are killing it, there’s another natural response that has real impact on our potential— complacency.

I love competing.  I always have.  Both personally and professionally.  I especially love to win, but recently I’ve come to think differently about what winning means.  Many of the sports I play – which are largely individual competitions – are designed for losing.  There’s only one winner among the many who participate.  I’d sometimes look at the format of a competition and wonder if I should bother joining it when I have little to no chance of coming in first – and in fact, have a much greater chance of finishing last.  But what I’ve come to realize lately is that, in all these endeavors, the real competition is with myself.  That doesn’t mean I always win, but it does mean that, at times, it may appear that I was nowhere near the top of a leaderboard, yet I still crushed it!

My past weekend was quite full balancing work (Sunday) and fun (Saturday), both of which took priority over the blog.  Still, it won’t take long to share all that I need to this week.  My outdoor climbing season began on Saturday, and I am as inspired as ever!  I can tell this story here through the social media diary I’ve put together . . .

“You never know what it is like to walk in someone else’s shoes until you are standing in them.”  This saying, which I first learned when I was a young boy, speaks to empathy, compassion, and acceptance and is generally a good lesson to live by.  But something misleading about the phrase that we must also know is that we can never walk in someone else’s shoes.  Shoes are a metaphor for life, and even those closest to us cannot know what it’s like to be us.  Yet we live in a world where, too often, we judge others based on their appearance whether we know them or not.  Shaming, bullying, and discrimination based on looks are as pervasive as ever.  Social media may be the epicenter of it, but don’t be fooled in thinking it isn’t everywhere else too.

The butterfly effect is a concept within chaos theory mathematics that means a small change in one state of being can be responsible for big differences in another.  The term was coined based on the idea that the wind pushed by a butterfly in one part of the world, could be responsible for starting a hurricane somewhere else.  As unlikely as that may be, I’ll explain here how true the concept is within the changes I made to my life – each starting with one small push.

If we’re lucky, we get to a point in life where we watch our parents age.  Mine, like many, can’t move the way they did when they were younger.  In fact, lately it’s clear they can’t move like they did five years ago, or even one year ago.  Some of this is due to medical issues beyond their control that would set anyone back.  What I’ve learned from this is that things will happen as I get older that might weaken or limit my abilities, but the fitter I am going into it, the better I will be coming out of it.

I think some people believe I am crazy.  I mean, they’ve told me so as recently as this week.  I’m not buying it, but for those who want to think so, the topic of this week’s crazy are the two races I ran over the past week or so.  Less than 48 hours after arriving home from Antarctica, I ran my first ever half marathon.  Then, a week later (this past Sunday), I ran a 10K in 18-degree weather.  Ambitious?  Yes.  Crazy?  No. 

Antarctica is one of the most remote and uninhabitable places on Earth.  The journey to get there is long and unpredictable, particularly as one must cross the dreaded Drake Passage to reach the continent.  But even if one makes it through, there’s no guarantee of what will happen once you get there.  Actually, there is one guarantee that our expedition leader, Neil, gave us at the start of our trip . . . “It will not go according to plan.”  All of this feels like a microcosm of my journey and a perfect setting to appreciate where I am on it today — especially as this destination did not seem possible for my body, mind, or fitness just ten years ago.

Having just been caught in the moment of New Year’s and setting our goals for 2025, it’s now time to toss them out the window – if we haven’t already.  I mean, seriously, when it is a challenge to even predict a day ahead, how can we possibly predict the year ahead?  We can all probably look back to one year ago and see how impossible that is.  As the old Yiddish adage goes, “Man Plans.  God laughs.”

As we enter the New Year, it’s time for my much-anticipated post about goals.  I’ve said this many times before, but goals can be dangerous.  Of course, it’s often beneficial and productive to aspire.  Ambition gives us purpose, and in any journey, purpose is what it’s all about.  The danger in goals is not about the possibility of falling short or setting expectations that turn out to be unattainable – in fact, there’s much to learn from that – rather, it’s about making sure that whatever goal I set will truly further what I want to achieve.

First, as I share my thoughts on goals, I understand that goals are personal.  This area, more than any other, is one where none of us are the same and the differences in our lives matter the most when looking ahead to what we want to achieve.  But there is an underlying concept that all of us can benefit from when setting goals in our lives – focus them on the process, not the outcome.

There’s something about climbing that feels so perfect for my blog.  It’s not just the cool videos and photos, although my Instagram would be a lot more boring without them.  No, it’s the metaphor.  Climbing is the symbol of my journey.  Because even though I just started it as a true hobby this year, this entire journey has been a climb.