Dear Body

Dear Body,

I can't believe that after twenty two years, I've never written you a love letter. I call myself a romantic, but I've never taken the time to acknowledge all you do for me, and how closely our fates are entwined. I love you body. I know you have always cared for me and I never really treated you well, but now that I have started to change my habits, I sure hope you don't give me much pain anymore. If I can only feed you right and tend your blisters and calluses well, I hope soon to see better results in our relationship. But as of now, the sense of strength and self-reliance (of what you can do!) is remarkable.

Yes, I am sorry for confusing you so much with all of these workouts, but it is something you are going to have to get used to! You will never know what's gonna come after you, and I think that it is best for you not to know. I hope you can understand.

I am very regretful for treating you so bad my whole life. It's a shame we lost that sense of connectedness and that broader perspective back then. I'm sorry for all the ways I've misused you in the intervening years. I know you gave me gentle reminders, like indigestion and headaches. I don't know how I misread those extra pounds, the visible reminders of what I was doing to you. It's only been the asthma and the migraines that made me sit-up and take notice. Thank you for the wake-up call, I really appreciate it. I think we're finally getting a good balance of mutual appreciation and respect.

I am constantly awed at your ability to adapt to any new challenge I've thrown at you. You have changed my perception of running, I enjoy it so much now. The intensity levels you are able to obtain from me is amazing. My workout times have been cut in half. Most importantly, however, is the increase of power you have achieved.

Power is the product of force and displacement (work) over the change of time. Do you remember the first time we did grace? Our time was around 6 minutes. Our recent time however is now around 3 minutes. We cut our grace time in half. How did we do that? We didn't lose much weight at all, but we were still capable to achieve a faster time. We gained power. We had more power generated to lift the 135lbs olympic bar over our head at a faster rate. This is amazing, it is challenging, it is results.

So thanks Body, again, for all that you do. Now as we turn twenty two, I am really excited to see what we can achieve next. There is still a long ways to go, another journey to reach, but now that we are on the same page, working together, I believe we can achieve unbelievable things.

Yourself,

Andrew