No sympathy, please.

[ridebikeme]

KNot, I love your attitude! I had several college coaches with that mindset, and have to say that they motivated me at times when I didn't have any!

I think the hardest thing sometimes is the expectiations we put on ourselves. We always strive to do more, and sometimes it comes back to haunt us. While I have no great words of encouragment, I would say that we should all be thankful for each and every day that we have here. Take care of yourself physically, but also don't forget to take care of the soul... that is the driving force behind all of us. It's the part that allows us to get in touch with everything around us. I've often heard that people who live in Alaska say that they felt a great deal of energy while living there, and while I can't fully understand it... I tend to believe it.

So lastly, I would say compete only with yourself, make yourself better and in the end that's all we can do. Keep a journal of good and bad days, workouts, sleep patterns, diet etc... perhaps that will lend some useful information.

take care!

[OakLeaf]

Heh, I'm 51, and I have yet to have a birthday as hard as 25 was.

Reference that depression I mentioned. It was four years later before I started treatment. At 25, I was back in school after a two-year hiatus after undergrad. A third of my life was over and I hadn't accomplished anything!

It's funny to look back on, but I really struggled with it at the time.

50, meh. 40, even less so. At 30, so many things were going on in my life that it was actually kind of exciting.

If I make it to 60 (part of thinking and feeling young, for me, is NOT believing I'm immortal the way so many people seem to when they get to be our age) - I may struggle with that. Hard to tell yet. (ETA - that's probably part of why turning 40 was so easy for me. I turned 40 not long before the turn of the millennium. In the 1980s I don't think I knew a single soul who thought we'd survive to see the year 2000.)