The morning alarm

"We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are." : Max De Pree

These are probably the most motivating and true words that I have ever read.  

I try to assimilate them.  

Whenever I run, I think and  dream about what I wish to become. 

I continuously plan what I want to achieve in terms of my running.  

During my runs, my mind is making and remaking my future training strategies.  : I add distance to my long runs, I add more repeats to my interval training, I add elevation to my hill training, I add volume to my total mileage. 

I can see the glories that I will achieve for myself in my next race.  I can visualise my awesome performance. 

I decide that I will really train hard in the days and weeks and months to follow.  It will be blood and guts and grit and glory.  And I can visualise the awesome race that i will enjoy. 

These are normally my brave thoughts during and immediately after a run as I drive home. 

But the pivotal moment for me comes every morning when the alarm rings.    

I'm astonished that it's already time to wake up.  I'm convinced at that moment, that I really need to rest up.  

Rest, after all, is the corner stone of good training.  

In a split second, I quickly recalculate and come to the conclusion that I can go and run in the gym later in the day or I can add another run sometime during one of the remaining days of the week. 

I then switch off the alarm and go back to bed and then .... I continue to remain the man I am by continuing to be the man I am. 

Shakespeare spoke about a tide in the affairs of men.  

He said that if we take up the tide at the flood it leads on to great fortune. 

But if we miss that moment of high tide, we will remain stuck in the shallows. 

I don't wish to remain in the shallows.  It is Time! 

The alarm clock announces the arrival of the tide.   

I'd better wake up and smell the coffee.   

Yes, it is Time !

But first let me hit the "snooze" button, just for a bit.