As a good part of the world celebrates Jesus’ birthday tonight and tomorrow, let’s take a moment to reflect upon the man that, amongst other things, easily could be heralded as the most influential person in history...

Regardless of our spiritual or religious beliefs, there is no denying that Jesus lived a life dedicated to serving all of mankind with the simple idea of making the world a better place. 

Despite our many flaws, Jesus preached love, acceptance and the idea of an eternal hope created by an unwavering belief system. 

He talked about how we need to love our neighbor and enemies just as we should love ourselves and how we must be able to forgive and refrain from any sort of hate at all costs.

In the unimaginable, Jesus even went so far to forgive the very men that crucified him... 

Sure, in theory Jesus left a terrific blueprint for how to live our lives, but the truth of the matter is that we are over emotional creatures that have had a very difficult time following Jesus’ lead. 

Forgiving anybody who has ever really hurt us can be damn near impossible, and oftentimes, it seems like hate and redemption just so happen to be ingrained in our DNA... 

Just ask Giants & Dodgers fans.

Was recently watching a documentary called “In Search For Greatness,” where they delved into the traits, characteristics and the upbringing of some of the greatest athletes the world has ever seen... 

Wayne Gretzky, widely recognized as the greatest hockey player in the history of the sport, tells a story when he was 10 years old and his squad had just lost the championship game to a rival team. 

On the ride home, Gretzky remembers his father telling him that although they lost to a better team... “Not one of those kids will ever play in the NHL.” 

Gretzky’s Dad’s reasoning was that they played way too much of a structured game, and the kids would never truly fulfill their maximum potential because of it. 

Sure enough and not surprising, not one of the kids that beat Gretzky’s team ever played in the NHL, but check this shit out... 

FIVE, I repeat FIVE of the kids on Gretzky’s team did.

Was recently watching a documentary called “In Search For Greatness,” where they delved into the traits, characteristics and the upbringing of some of the greatest athletes the world has ever seen... 

Wayne Gretzky, widely recognized as the greatest hockey player in the history of the sport, tells a story when he was 10 years old and his squad had just lost the championship game to a rival team. 

On the ride home, Gretzky remembers his father telling him that although they lost to a better team... “Not one of those kids will ever play in the NHL.” 

Gretzky’s Dad’s reasoning was that they played way too much of a structured game, and the kids would never truly fulfill their maximum potential because of it. 

Sure enough and not surprising, not one of the kids that beat Gretzky’s team ever played in the NHL, but check this shit out... 

FIVE, I repeat FIVE of the kids on Gretzky’s team did.

Let's stick with the Ironman theme this week… 

Because Ironman AZ was my 12th full distance IM race, I would like to say that I would have had a pretty good idea of what to expect heading into the competition.

The more I have thought about it, I’ve come to the realization that racing Ironman isn’t much different than the race of life... 

Simply put, we get out what we put in and no matter how much we want to try to brainwash ourselves in an effort to achieve overly optimistic unrealistic results, we will always find a way to fall to our level of training each and every single time. 

That said, those who are able to suffer a bit more than others will fall to the maximum level of their training while those who have a lower pain tolerance most likely will reach an artificial threshold far below their ultimate potential. 

Sounds pretty simple and should be pretty easy for us to predict success and individual performance... Right? 

WRONG. 

We have these things called X factors, black swans if you will... Outliers that continue to change the game on a daily basis and gosh damn they make life interesting. 

These are uncontrollable influences that are not always easily identifiable or quantifiable and will have a direct impact on our resulting level of performance. 

Possibly a sudden surge of cooperating muscle fibers, increased aerobic capacity, and adrenaline firing on all cylinders because of the positioning of the moon relative to the earth…

WTF do we know?  The lunar eclipse may just be the thing that helps us deliver a performance of a lifetime.

Let's stick with the Ironman theme this week… 

Because Ironman AZ was my 12th full distance IM race, I would like to say that I would have had a pretty good idea of what to expect heading into the competition.

The more I have thought about it, I’ve come to the realization that racing Ironman isn’t much different than the race of life... 

Simply put, we get out what we put in and no matter how much we want to try to brainwash ourselves in an effort to achieve overly optimistic unrealistic results, we will always find a way to fall to our level of training each and every single time. 

That said, those who are able to suffer a bit more than others will fall to the maximum level of their training while those who have a lower pain tolerance most likely will reach an artificial threshold far below their ultimate potential. 

Sounds pretty simple and should be pretty easy for us to predict success and individual performance... Right? 

WRONG. 

We have these things called X factors, black swans if you will... Outliers that continue to change the game on a daily basis and gosh damn they make life interesting. 

These are uncontrollable influences that are not always easily identifiable or quantifiable and will have a direct impact on our resulting level of performance. 

Possibly a sudden surge of cooperating muscle fibers, increased aerobic capacity, and adrenaline firing on all cylinders because of the positioning of the moon relative to the earth…

WTF do we know?  The lunar eclipse may just be the thing that helps us deliver a performance of a lifetime.

“Listen to your body” is a phrase that I have heard, repeated and tried to adhere to for years... 

Yet, what exactly does that mean?

When we get into an electric car, we will know how much of a charge we have by looking at the gauge and then adjust the way we drive accordingly... 

When we don’t have a full charge and go too fast, we will inevitably burn through all of our juice before we reach our destination.

As much as this pains me to say this, our only way to get where we need to go is by slowing down and conserving energy output... 

Sure, if we happen to be fully charged up and don’t have too far to go, we can step on the accelerator and let that bad boy EAT... Yet if we are less than full charge headed from Sac to Lake Tahoe, there is a good chance the battery craps out at the top of the 80 going over Donner Pass (it’s only happened once).

“Listen to your body” is a phrase that I have heard, repeated and tried to adhere to for years... 

Yet, what exactly does that mean?

When we get into an electric car, we will know how much of a charge we have by looking at the gauge and then adjust the way we drive accordingly... 

When we don’t have a full charge and go too fast, we will inevitably burn through all of our juice before we reach our destination.

As much as this pains me to say this, our only way to get where we need to go is by slowing down and conserving energy output... 

Sure, if we happen to be fully charged up and don’t have too far to go, we can step on the accelerator and let that bad boy EAT... Yet if we are less than full charge headed from Sac to Lake Tahoe, there is a good chance the battery craps out at the top of the 80 going over Donner Pass (it’s only happened once).

The week leading up to Ironman AZ, I had a nasty ear infection, and quite honestly experienced pain I had never felt in my life... 

I was on 2 different antibiotics and bed ridden with a relentless fever. On Thursday, we drove to Vegas on the way to Arizona and I told Tarah I wasn’t racing and we should turn around and go home.

She drove to AZ anyway, and once we got down there and I got my first sight of the Ironman Village, the “f*ck it” mentality quickly kicked in... 

Ultimately, I figured if Van Gough cut his ear off, I could do the same if the infection got worse and shit got real bad. Nonetheless, I toed the start line on Sunday with a much less than 100 percent charge... 

Sure, we would all like to be at full strength each and every single day, but our willingness and ability to perform not at full strength, oftentimes will yield us experiences and lessons much more valuable than when we are at our best.

Ironically, it’s these challenging moments and dark times that truly make us grateful for when we actually get to play with a full arsenal.

My ear hurt, the swim sucked, the bike was miserable and the run incredibly painful, yet something magical happened along the way that made this Ironman different than any other one I have ever done... 

If you are an avid Daily Hustler, my training partner in crime #Kowalski needs no introduction.... I have logged more training hours and have done more EPIC shit with this dude than anybody else alive... 

#Kowalski has been by my side as a pacer/support crew for Western States, the Triathlon Across America, and the World Record Speed Golf Challenge that covered 106 miles in a 24 hour period.

We have definitely done the same races before and even recently stuck together for the entire Spartan Ultra Beast 30-mile, 60-obstacle extravaganza... That was cool and easy to do because our run paces match up closely and we both had no clue WTF we were doing with the obstacles... 

That all said, an Ironman is completely different.  It’s 3 activities totally independent of each other and usually has no less than 2500 participants. Simply put, it’s a shit show and rarely will I ever recognize a single person on the course despite knowing 100 people out there... So when I saw Kowalski a few miles ahead at mile 25ish of the bike, I was STOKED to say the least.

I spent the next 95 miles of the bike playing cat and mouse trying to real his ass in so we could ride together, but the f*cker wouldn’t let me catch him and I had no intention of blowing up to do it. 

When we got on the run, I saw Kowalski when I was at the 1.5 mile mark and he was at the 2.5 mile mark, so I knew I had about 8 minutes to make up... The next time I saw him he was at the 8.5 mile mark and I was at the 8 mile mark, but when I hit mile 14, he was at mile 15 and increased his lead again... 

I tossed out a “CACA” as I crossed paths with him from a distance and could tell he had a look in his eye like a SAVAGE on a RAMPAGE...

If it hadn’t been apparent before this moment, it was obviously ON.

To be totally transparent and to add context to the situation, my best Ironman time is 10:01 and Kowalski’s is around 10:30... Bottom line was that this dude smelled blood in the water and was going in for the kill when he had the chance and I didn’t blame him one bit... 

I actually f*cking LOVED it.

Part of me felt like a proud PaPa that had mentored his kid for this exact moment and genuinely would have been STOKED to see him slaughter the rest of the race and take my ass down for the first time… As I relished in my non ego grander perspective, I hit mile 15, stopped dead in my tracks and came to the conclusion that if Kowalski were to beat me, I needed to make him EARN IT.

The week leading up to Ironman AZ, I had a nasty ear infection, and quite honestly experienced pain I had never felt in my life... 

I was on 2 different antibiotics and bed ridden with a relentless fever. On Thursday, we drove to Vegas on the way to Arizona and I told Tarah I wasn’t racing and we should turn around and go home.

She drove to AZ anyway, and once we got down there and I got my first sight of the Ironman Village, the “f*ck it” mentality quickly kicked in... 

Ultimately, I figured if Van Gough cut his ear off, I could do the same if the infection got worse and shit got real bad. Nonetheless, I toed the start line on Sunday with a much less than 100 percent charge... 

Sure, we would all like to be at full strength each and every single day, but our willingness and ability to perform not at full strength, oftentimes will yield us experiences and lessons much more valuable than when we are at our best.

Ironically, it’s these challenging moments and dark times that truly make us grateful for when we actually get to play with a full arsenal.

My ear hurt, the swim sucked, the bike was miserable and the run incredibly painful, yet something magical happened along the way that made this Ironman different than any other one I have ever done... 

If you are an avid Daily Hustler, my training partner in crime #Kowalski needs no introduction.... I have logged more training hours and have done more EPIC shit with this dude than anybody else alive... 

#Kowalski has been by my side as a pacer/support crew for Western States, the Triathlon Across America, and the World Record Speed Golf Challenge that covered 106 miles in a 24 hour period.

We have definitely done the same races before and even recently stuck together for the entire Spartan Ultra Beast 30-mile, 60-obstacle extravaganza... That was cool and easy to do because our run paces match up closely and we both had no clue WTF we were doing with the obstacles... 

That all said, an Ironman is completely different.  It’s 3 activities totally independent of each other and usually has no less than 2500 participants. Simply put, it’s a shit show and rarely will I ever recognize a single person on the course despite knowing 100 people out there... So when I saw Kowalski a few miles ahead at mile 25ish of the bike, I was STOKED to say the least.

I spent the next 95 miles of the bike playing cat and mouse trying to real his ass in so we could ride together, but the f*cker wouldn’t let me catch him and I had no intention of blowing up to do it. 

When we got on the run, I saw Kowalski when I was at the 1.5 mile mark and he was at the 2.5 mile mark, so I knew I had about 8 minutes to make up... The next time I saw him he was at the 8.5 mile mark and I was at the 8 mile mark, but when I hit mile 14, he was at mile 15 and increased his lead again... 

I tossed out a “CACA” as I crossed paths with him from a distance and could tell he had a look in his eye like a SAVAGE on a RAMPAGE...

If it hadn’t been apparent before this moment, it was obviously ON.

To be totally transparent and to add context to the situation, my best Ironman time is 10:01 and Kowalski’s is around 10:30... Bottom line was that this dude smelled blood in the water and was going in for the kill when he had the chance and I didn’t blame him one bit... 

I actually f*cking LOVED it.

Part of me felt like a proud PaPa that had mentored his kid for this exact moment and genuinely would have been STOKED to see him slaughter the rest of the race and take my ass down for the first time… As I relished in my non ego grander perspective, I hit mile 15, stopped dead in my tracks and came to the conclusion that if Kowalski were to beat me, I needed to make him EARN IT.

Was on the 30-mile, 60-obstacle Spartan course at Squaw Valley in Lake Tahoe when we were about 2 miles into the race and came across a sign that pretty much sums up the successful approach one must take to all ultra endurance adventure events...

“Find the level of intolerance you can tolerate and stay there.” - David Horton 

Holy shit balls of fire. ☄️ 

Somebody finally put into words what I have learned since venturing into this semi sicko world. 

People will ask me on a daily basis how I am able to endure some of the stuff that I have done since my baseball playing days ended... 

“Dude, doesn’t your body hurt when you run 100 miles, do a triathlon across the country or play 420 holes of golf in 24 hours?” 

Hey, it’s Stevie SuperSoft!!!!

Of course it hurts Stevie... But it’s a fun pain.  The type of hurt that reminds us that we are ALIVE.  Endurance, both physical & mental, is one of the greatest attributes in life.  So long we figure out how to endure the inevitable highs and lows the world delivers, we will continue to charge forward.  

Yet, endurance isn’t given, it’s EARNED.  Endurance is earned by training our bodies and minds to push our personal threshold of tolerance. 

Marcus Aurilius put it brilliantly over 2000 years ago... 

“If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining.” 

Basically over 2000 years later, this shit hasn’t changed... 

If you can tolerate it, tolerate it. Quit bitching. 

-EB