Milestones

I remember the first time I ran a mile. It was early fall, and my friends had begun doing this sport called "Cross Country". They would amaze me with tales of their distance running between spitballs and throwing wads of paper to the front of the classroom. Not to be outdone, I foolishly laughed and told them I had been doing twice as much as them, and would school any one of them in a distance run.

After a few days of being called a bullshit liar, I started thinking one of them might actually see me run oneday. So, I figured I should put feet to the pavement and become the next world record holder in the mile. After school one day, I headed to the local park following my healthy afterschool snack of honey buns and Mountain Dew to begin my training.

After blasting around the track two times, I had done it. Running a mile was not as hard as I thought, and I had done it in 5 minutes! Surely faster than the times they were telling me they were running! The next day, I proudly informed them of my new mile time. They were impressed, but certain I was lying. "I ran around the track two whole times, I swear!"

"Dude, a mile is four times around the track."

Looking back at that moment years later, after I'd won my very first race in the mile, I was amazed at how far I had come. All the hard work I had been putting in for the last few years was finally paying off.

The same thing happened this weekend. After spending the majority of the past year defending submissions, turtling, and hip escaping my way back to guard, I landed an armbar on my uncle who also happens to be my teacher. It was a great moment, and showed me just how far I had come. The fact that he submitted me five times in two minutes immeditately after that did not matter.

I had hit a milestone.