From the Ground Up

From the Ground Up from Chris Skogen on Vimeo.

"That’s the real challenge. That’s the real goal in all of this, to find something inside of yourself that says, "I can do this. I will do this. I’m going to do this"."

"There’s no greater sense of accomplishment than defeating your own worst enemy, that person in the back of your head that says, “You can’t do this. You are not good enough to do this”."

"There's nothing like it; it's incredible."

I find myself very drawn to this video,a video from the Almanzo 100, a gravel "race" century in Minnesota, and to the spirit of the race director, Chris Skogen. As someone who has not always found that inner strength, these words by some random race organizer speak to me, and speak to the difficulties that a person can overcome. The difficulty is inside, not outside. Will the angel or the demon win? Buddhism speaks quite often about senseless, destructive inner narrative, that distracts us from living. In some people (like you-know-who), this narrative becomes a very negative and cynical inner self-berating. In the realm of cycling, this negativity leads to cover up shortcomings of not achieving goals like a long ride or not being strong enough with more and more eating; it becomes a most vicious cycle. If one takes Mr. Skogen's words into focus, then success comes not from finishing the distance or winning the race, but from the sense of accomplishment from, in effect, defeating that negative side of your psyche, defeating that worst enemy. And I am definitely that worst enemy.