“I wonder what’s down that road…”

The theme I aspire to for my 3rd third is Adventure. That’s the word I think of when I consider what makes for a joyful, vs a mundane life. I define adventure as any endeavor where the outcome is uncertain.

Adventures come in many shapes and sizes; the degree of risk is the determining factor. Going to the store might be, strictly speaking, an adventure as I might get in an accident on the way. But in half a century, that has never happened, so I rate store trips pretty low on the adventure scale. At the other end of the scale is motorcycle road racing, which has been one of my passions. I’ve been lucky enough not to be injured on the track, but doing backward summersaults at 80 mph after crashing the bike carries a fair degree of risk. In such situations, time slows down, and my mind becomes an outside observer to what my body is doing. I find myself listening intently for the sound of breaking bones, which thankfully I’ve never heard. If you could see inside my helmet after one of these spills, you’d find the biggest shit-eating grins ever – what a hoot!

In the many cross country motorcycle rides I’ve taken with my friend Pat, there’s almost always a point where I gaze down a seldom-traveled path and utter the words, “I wonder what’s down that road?” (Pat says that phrase will be my epitaph). I believe that sense of wonder – and its close cousin wanderlust, are the fuel that feed my sense of adventure.

Over the course of my 3rd third, I plan to write about many adventures, big and small. I will also talk about what it takes to be in shape for adventure, what training is necessary to enable adventurous activity. A sneak preview: my guiding principle can be summarized in the single word, agility (I seem to like single word summaries). To be adventurous, I must be agile in mind (mental agility), body (physical agility), and spirt (emotional agility). Every adventure includes all three of those qualities in various proportions, and I therefore must actively train and prepare myself in all of them. This suggests a lifestyle that I’ve found to be very rewarding.

More to come on this next time!