Dear Rip,

The last words I said to you as we parted at the end of the 4/16 SSS was “keep fighting the good fight”. Of course l was speaking of what you’ve done and continue to do for the advancement of our fitness industry. And you have certainly not disappointed in that regard.

Listening today to your reading of “Strength Training for People my Age” reminded me of how much you’ve done to help Masters fight the good fight against muscular and functional atrophy. And that reminded me of a passage that I read regularly because it gives me the emotional fuel to constantly ask more of myself physically and spiritually. I share it here on the off chance that it may be unfamiliar to you and to many of our brothers and sisters of iron and that it may inspire them to PBs in many aspects of their lives.

The passage is contained in lines 65-70 of Tennyson’s “Ulysses”:

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Yours in strength,

Francisco