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Mandy you go girl!
When I started the raceAthlete B-Fit B-Day Challenge at the beginning of this year I got a lot of great comments about the unique idea of celebrating health and fitness on one's B-Day with a little athletic Challenge.
But it was the handful of negative comments that really made me think.
The Challenge is simple, but not easy. You must:
Take your age and in any order:
1) Swim the number of miles in the first number,
2) Run the number of miles in the second number,
3) Bike the number of miles in the combined number.
So a 45-year-old athlete would:
1) Swim 4 miles
2) Run 5 miles
3) Bike 45 miles
A lot of great athlete's took up the B-Fit Challenge when I first announced it to team raceAthlete. But a small number of athletes called it, "age discrimination," "fluff," and one went so far as to say that it was, "a complete waste of time and energy!"
I completely disagree!
And I want to thank Mandy for making my point with her fantastic B-Fit Challenge video.
You see in my way of thinking our health and fitness is one of the greatest gifts that we get in life.
The old saying, "Use it or lose it," certainly applies.
So why not celebrate this great gift with our friends and family on our birthday? We spend so much time and energy when it all goes South to get well, yet we rarely celebrate the health and fitness that we have...when we have it.
There are a lot of great people doing great work on trying cure the many ways that we can get sick and unwell with the hundreds of diseases that can rob us of our health. There is so much pain, sadness and suffering when we, our friends, our loved ones, get sick with cancer, or any of the other countless ways that our lives can be cut short.
There are so many brave people today fighting the big battle to overcome, acknowledge, or even remember all those who fought their battles and lost.
The B-Fit B-Day Challenge is simply the other side of that same coin.
It's the "Thank You" card instead of the "Get Well" card.
It is our chance to shine and to show all those that we love how fortunate and thankful we are to be healthy.
I'll be the first to admit that it is not an easy Challenge. In fact, it is very hard and it gets harder as we get older. But than again we have to work harder to stay fit as we age, and in the end we have more to be thankful for as we get older.
In the next two weeks many of us will be watching the Olympics, which in my mind is the ultimate display and celebration of physical fitness and ability. Unfortunately we all can't compete at that world class level. But we all have a B-Day, and if we're lucky we also have a healthy body, and if we work at it... a fit body.
So a huge thanks to Rudy Project, Hornet Juice, and 2XU for their support this year and thanks Mandy for sharing your B-day Challenge with me today. For proving in such a fun and creative way that my idea wasn't just "fluff." You made my day and even though the weather outside here in Boulder, CO is lousy...it is indeed a beautiful day!