yeesh, slacker

man, it's been a really slack couple of weeks. work piling up coupled with light renovations around the house and having to organise my boys' birthday party ... these gave me excuses to not do training runs. i'm feeling the pressure now with the addidas run only 19 days away. time to get serious!

anyway, second instalment on the analysis of teeny bopper miley's song:

the struggles i'm facing
the chances i'm taking
sometimes may knock me down
but no, i'm not breaking

i may not know it
but these are the moments
that i'm gonna remember most, yeah
just gotta keep going

and i just got to be strong
just keep pushing on

pretty insightful for a 16/17-year old. :-) it really is going to be the tough moments, the painful ones, that will define and show who and what we are when we struggle and push through them. at my recent half-marathon run in kl, apart from a few notable moments like the start of the race, the moments i remember most were the ones where i struggled to keep running even when i was exhausted or battling an uphill slope. the most memorable by far was that of being dead tired about a kilometre from the finish, and steeling myself to stop walking and start running, so that i could finish the final stretch running. it was tough, but finishing that race in a run ... was priceless. :-)

those are the moments we remember ... the tough ones, the challenges, the painful ones ... we remember that we pushed on, that we struggled, that we tried. and even if we fail, if we reach our absolute limit and cannot continue, we will remember the struggle up to that point.

but oh no, i'm not breaking, i'm gonna keep pushing on. :-) what about you? :-)

it's the climb

so i guess i'm not the only one who likes "the climb" by sixteen-year-old miley cyrus. it's been playing endlessly on the radio, time and time again. i guess it must appeal to lots of people on some fundamental level, striking a chord beneath the surface about the need to keep pushing on, and to take satisfaction and a sense of achievement for every battle we've won, every finish line we cross. after all, life's a race of sorts, and takes effort, real effort sometimes. sometimes most of the time. :-)

and for those who've made crossing finish lines their goal in life, the following words ring so true:

there's always gonna be another mountain
i'm always gonna wanna make it move
it's always gonna be an uphill battle
sometimes i'm gonna have to lose
ain't about how fast i get there
ain't about what's waiting on the other side
it's the climb

the last line in miley's chorus tell's us that it's not just about that finish, but rather that it's about the battles around us and within us that we fight and overcome before we reach that finish line. that victory when we hit that tape is all the more sweeter because we overcame those challenges. it's the climb.