If Only Their Endurance Also Applied To Marriage

This morning I finished the rest of the book, "Iron War" by Matt Fitzgerald.  It was a disappointment in how the race ended, as I explained in a recent post.  The rest of the book was mostly a let-down also.  The book itself was well written, documented and researched but both of the two endurance athletes, Dave Scott and Mark Allen, each got a DNF in their respective marriages which ended in divorces.

An enduring marriage is worth more than all the triathlons in the world

Which goes to show that keeping one's marriage vows is a lot harder than running a triathlon. My hat is off to everyone who finishes in the marriage multi-athlon.

Of the two athletes, Dave Scott and Mark Allen and what I know of them from that book, I have a lot more respect for Dave Scott than for Mark Allen. All top athletes either must have been born with a gift of mental discipline or they must work to cultivate the will to endure the special kind of suffering which accompanies top performance .

Dave Scott seems to have been born with an aptitude for that mental discipline and taught himself from childhood to keep trying harder to push his body to its limits but Mark Allen had to cultivate an attitude which would endure the suffering.

Dave Scott just worked hard and kept on working.  The book mentions nothing about Dave Scott's spiritual beliefs.

But Mark Allen put his faith in paganism, "atavistic" rituals and shamanism ... anything but what Jesus revealed as the one and only Truth. Mark Allen prayed to pagan gods.  Yech!

As for my "athletic activity" today, there is no segue to that topic.  The first thing I did was have coffee and a sizable breakfast while finishing the reading of that book.  Then I sat on the rowing machine and changed out of slippers and into rowing shoes.  Then I felt sleepy and went back to bed to enjoy the nearby warmth of the sleeping figure of Diane.

Even though I'd had coffee, I went to sleep and continued sleeping until after Diane's usual time of rising.  Then I got up, dressed for rowing again and had a sizeable lunch.

The rowing was quite a bit slower than the previous few days, though the target heart rate was exactly the same at 133 bpm. Perhaps its not a good idea to eat a sizable lunch before rowing?

Today's finish screen

Today's session report.