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

Merida is one of my favorite princesses.

Merida is a favorite princess of a lot of little girls. Like almost 2 million.  And I don’t think she is too sexy.

I am not real sure how many that is but I am pretty sure that is a lot.

Daddy has been telling me some of the lessons he learned from when he was an ultra-runner, many many years ago.

He says, “Growing up is a marathon, not a sprint.”

One of those lessons –

“Few people are brave enough to back off and analyze their training from overtraining.”

Hmm… brave enough to NOT do something?

I thought being brave was always doing something. Facing fears. Conquering. Winning. Beating. That kind of thing.

It seems there are times when it takes bravery to NOT do something. To back away. To stand down.

I like to joke with my daddy. I like to tease him. I like to hide his shoes. And ask him questions, “Why? Why? Why? …”

And sometimes, daddy say, “Mia, too much is too much.”

Now, I think I have a little bit of an idea of what he means.

Doing too much can break something sometimes.

It never occurred to me that someone could be pushing too hard to be too strong too soon.

Hmm… I wonder if I will have the courage to be able to say when I have done enough for one day, or one week and take a break.

Do you know when to stop?

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