Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.

Ultrarunning and Life’s Lessons

Growing up is a marathon not a sprint – Getting out of your comfort zone

Daddy used to do ultramarathons and triathlons. That’s what this ongoing series is all about. The lessons he learned on the bike, in the pool and on the run.

Lesson: No seat feels comfortable after 5 hours of riding.

Fact: In the long distance events, unless you are really really fast, you will be on a bike longer than 5 hours.

When things go wrong, feel wrong or just plain hurt, there’s a tendency to feel self-pity.

The athlete in training feels it. The concert pianist who practices every day feels it. The dancer, the singer and so on. When things go wrong as they do sometimes, the individual begins to think that they are the only ones who ever feel the way they are at the moment.

Nobody else ever hurts, gets bored, gets lonely, works so hard, gets so little results for so much effort … and and and …

Poor poor me.

Truth is, after a while whatever you doing persistently is going to hurt at some point.

It’s at that point you get to grow, to beat your competition. Whenever the guy next to you starts to hurt and you start to hurt and he or she quits, backs off, eases up … bear  down, push harder, stay with it a bit longer and you will win.

Every body hurts at some point. It’s what you do when you face that hurt that makes the difference.

Have you ever given up too soon? Then gone home and felt like, ‘If I hadn’t quit then … Or now that I look I look back on that moment I could have … “

Don’t quit when it hurts. Quit after everyone else has quit.

Then when you feel like quitting … keep going just a bit more.

Talk to Bill and others about their experiences raising bi-cultural Japanese-American kids.