Lunch and Stuff

I was having lunch the other day with some colleagues.  We have a fairly strict rule that there is no "shop talk" at the lunch table.

There are about ten of us in the office with an age range of several decades.  I am always interested in hearing about peoples time off, their hobbies or activities. It seems a lot of people are into what I would call long distance extreme running.  I am in awe of the preparation and work they do to get ready for these challenging runs.  I was commending one colleague in particular and we chatted for some time about his regimes and schedules.  

He then asked me about kung fu and how my grading year was going. I was quite taken back as I have mentioned it previously, but don't really bring it up unless someone else does.  He asked me how I was doing on my requirements and as I was formulating my response, a few other colleagues joined the conversation, interested to see how I was doing. It is still probably an ego thing, but I found myself prefacing my response with something around slow progress due to an old injury.  When I outlined some of our specific requirements (push ups, sit ups, running/walking, etc.) and where I was sitting at, they were taken back a bit.  The conversation evolved to the last time anyone else had did any push ups or sit ups and it was quite a while.

I struggle every time I post my numbers.  I don't like where they are at and I am doing what I can to progress safely.  But this conversation left me not necessarily validated, but definitely feeling better about my slow progress.

I have seen some stagnation the past few weeks but I haven't lost any ground.  I will continue with my current trajectory and keep pushing my limits to change it in a more positive direction.

Thanks for reading,

Mike