I realized that part of the motivation to work hard at working out for me is real life applications of the skills. I've never been particularly interested in sporting events, certainly not a marathon or a triathalon - partly because it seemed sort of boring, because I never understood the point. Now I see that running a 5 or ten K could be a training tool, of course, but I find it hard to get motivated to train simply to participate in an event. I found an event that sounds interesting and fun, with lots of cool and hard things to do, called the Rugged Maniac. Perhaps when it gets closer, I'll get more excited. (And when it gets warmer, I'll be more willing to run outside!) But for now, I'm still a little unmotivated. I did finally get myself back to Stew's class. Back on the wagon. It is interesting, though. The idea about real life skills... The Fire Fighter thing had real meaning. I knew that I had to learn to lift or drag a certain amount of weight because fire fighters need to do that sort of thing, and I was going to be tested on that. It reminds me of when I was working of accomplishing an unassisted pull-up and a friend at the gym said: what if you fell into a hole? We laughed about the liklihood of their being a bar at the top of the hole. So actually, I need to train those again, because in the Rugged Maniac, I have to climb over walls!