Oxygen debt

It's unforgiving, like a form of justice that is completely honest and harsh in meting out the consequences of our actions.

It's reliable, like a reference that does not waver in its accuracy, does not sugar-coat the truth, and does not make exceptions or play favorites.

It's real, experiential, and fact-based. It's not a figment of your imagination or "just a theory" based on a hypothesis based on an ideology based on a belief system based on a cultural worldview.

It's fair, just, and equitable in its indifference to you, me, or anyone in particular who might otherwise be special. It's an equal-opportunity arbiter of training, preparation, and practice, practice, practice.

For example, if you walk, run, swim, or cycle every day for 30 minutes at x minutes per mile, the bodymind develops the ability and even the expectation to walk, run, swim, or cycle every day for 30 minutes at x minutes per mile, no more and no less. It's pretty amazing how muscles, bones, joints, heart, lungs, and neurons adapt to a consistent practice. It's like you have made a contract signed in sweat.

If you then walk, run, swim, or cycle for 40 minutes at x minutes per miles - or for 30 minutes at x-1 minutes per miles - more duration at the same intensity or the same duration at greater intensity - then we have a problem. You have overdrawn your energy account and come up short; you have exhausted your resources and have a balance due; you are out of funds halfway home. You are in oxygen debt.