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 – Recuperating from Training
People like to compare themselves to others. To determine if they are doing more, or better, or faster, or smarter …
Daddy is not like that. He says you need to compare yourself with yourself.
Are you doing more, doing better, faster, smarter than you were yesterday?
Comparing yourself to others is not a bad thing. But it is if that is your only yardstick.
Lesson: The amount of time it takes the body to recuperate is not a sign of weakness but a fact of life.
Not everyone is the same. Not everyone has the same life situation, the same upbringing, the same environment, the same resources.
All things being equal for the most part, some people need more sleep than others, need more time to recover, recuperate from pushing themselves.
If Joe and I can run the same speed but he recovers faster than me and I try to keep up, I will eventually break down.
I need to know myself, my own limitations. And I need to work within that.
If I recover faster than Joe, yet I see that it takes him longer and I slow myself down to keep up, um, down with him, I will not get as good a results out of my efforts as I could.
Competitors can be a good motivators. But they are not good yardsticks.
I need to know and measure myself. And do better than I, myself, did yesterday. In that way I will get the best results for my efforts.
