Listening to Coaches

It is hard to describe the feeling of extreme tiredness while traveling.

I’m sitting at LHR (London Heathrow Airport), famous for being ‘slightly less stressful than being robbed at gunpoint.  The gate isn’t announced until 45 minutes before your takeoff, with some gates over 20 minutes away by transit.

I sit here and exhale.  The deep kind where you can feel toxins leaving your body much like after a night of heavy drinking.  I’m exhaling exhaustion.  33 days on the road, 2 days home, out again for another 14.  All traveling lightweight, all done with very little money.

Strangely, I kinda love it.  I don’t think I would do it any other way.

I get to see what usability looks like when I don’t speak the language.  I get to see customs turned on their head (the person to the left of me at the restaurant is having a glass of champagne with his traveling companion, which happens to be his 10 year old son).  I get to meet friends and share stories.

I get to grow.

Which sucks when you are happy with your life.  Harsh, but when you grow and come back to what you were happy with, you question your whole mental structure.

It is amazing though.  I really cherish it.

I’m beginning to see just how much I take advice to heart.  When I was 16 I wanted to run a marathon.  I wasn’t fast but felt like I was up for it.   I was warned about serious permanent damage if I went through with it by a coach.  I was told to wait until I was the age of the distance.  26.2 years of age for a 26.2 mile race.

I waited until last month I was 25.7.  Close enough for me.

I’m heading to Athens right now because over two years ago David Cohen told me to act on an idea.  I’m going to Barcelona because Niel Robertson said it was the one place he would go if he had a week.

So it goes, and so I go, spending my offseason from TechStars prototyping startups on fast high altitude chunks of metal.

So it goes.

A years time before my first Ironman (2010 Ironman Arizona).  Listening to as many people as I can.

Thank you all.   Cheers from London.