AFS?!?

Spent the weekend living through my daughter's birthday party - she's turning five. If you have the opportunity I highly recommend taking your next birthday party offsite. I have no affiliation with any of "those places" - if you have kids, you know where they are, but I am entirely in favour of taking the mess, muss, fuss, bother and noise (especially with seventeen five-and-thereabouts-year-old girls, and their mothers.

On an entirely unrelated (but slightly funny to me) note, I noticed after I filled in my shoe log for Friday that the total mileage on the shoes was a coincidentally familiar number: 140.6. Got in a five medium-length runs this week, none over 7.5 miles, but the frequency is starting to come up to a respectable level. And, after last week's "float like an anvil" triumphant return to the pool, I haven't gone back yet. Need to get in some cheater hours first - gotta get that arm strength back up.

So, what's "AFS" all about? It's not my initials, nor is it any affliction I' m aware of. AFS is an acronym for "always finish strong". I find it comes in handy after the half-way point of any long-course event. This is a little beyond playing mental games with yourself, tricking yourself into running or riding to the next mile marker, and then tricking yourself into doing it again. It's also a little more than the golfer's subconscious desire to crush the tee shot on the first hole, and to hole out the fifteen-foot put to finish the eighteenth hole, always "looking good" in sight of the "crowd" at the clubhouse, even if he/she has scuffled/dunked to a one-twenty in between. Like they say, "it's better to look good than to feel good".

"AFS" is a combination of the two. Keeps my concentrating on economical form (as much as possible) as the fatigue starts to set in, and saps my will to live. It pushes back the desire to quit, to pack it in and jump on the "loser truck" (call it any other name, it's still the loser truck to me). Above, there was very little looking good, and even less feeling good, and a lot of talking to myself about bringing it home, sealing the deal, and finishing what I started. It's just one more extension of yet another old saying (last one for today): "If you believe you can, or believe you can't, you're right."

'Til next time.

ap