Oh Yeah, Remember?

With all this running and pound-losing and preparing for a half-marathon and talking about running and pound-losing, it's easy to believe that that's all this blog is about. But it's about so much more.

It's about digging out those forever-dreams that I buried long ago in the detritus of survival. Forever, because most of my dreams/goals have been a part of me since I was young:

Entrepreneurial - I was mowing lawns for money at 12 and dreaming up other businesses with each pass of the mower. Heck, when I was 9 or 10, my sister and I put together magic shows in our basement, charging admission and selling popcorn and lemonade for a little spending money.

Writing - I've been writing stories since my 4th grade teacher told me I had a gift for the written word (pardon the cliche, but she really did!). I have three finished novels collecting dust on my back burner. And when I ruminate on one or the other, I get excited about their stories and characters all over again. They may not be publisher-worthy quite yet, but each one has potential...to touch lives, move emotions in some way, thrill a reader.

Every time I see a hawk sitting on a pole or streaking through the trees of the neighborhood chasing sparrows, I remember how alive I felt when I was a falconer. It's been six years since I flew a hawk, but when I see one, I think, I could do that now...I'm healthy enough to keep up with a goshawk! (Well, relatively speaking - I'm healthy enough to handle the long jaunts through knee-deep snow to recover a goshawk plucking a pheasant a mile from where she first left my fist.) Or follow a crazy squirrel chase through the woods with a fierce and determined Redtailed hawk.

And my newest one, which is really a return to the days when I was a big fan of Backwoods Home magazine, but actually makes even more sense in this crazy world we live in today, becoming more self-relient. I want to grow my own food - vegetables, herbs, fruit, maybe even eggs - and can it, and brew my own beer, and hunt my own meat (another long-held dream - arrowing a deer).

These dreams are all a part of living, living my life, which is what this blog is all about: truly living, not just surviving. Ignoring the naysayer at the back of my mind telling me I'll fail, or it's not good enough, or it's not worth the trouble, and doing something because it's what I was born to do. And because putting off everything until "one of these days" may just take too long.

I need to remember that.

Do you have dreams that are in the "One Of These Days" files? When are you going to get them out of the file and start doing them?

12

It's down to 12 days from the Event Of The Year for me. The Monster Dash Half Marathon.

In preparation, this past Saturday I joined 50 or 60 other Team Ortho folks to run a practice run on the actual course. We ran the first 6 miles, then turned and ran back to the start - 12 miles.

Yes, I told myself, you just ran 12 miles in 2 hours and 22 minutes at an 11:09 per mile pace! With very few walk breaks and only one porta-potty break. (I passed it by on the outrun, but on the way back, at mile 8, I had to stop - coffee is a blessing and a curse, you know.) And I burned 2800+ calories doing it - enough to justify McDonald's, Wendy's and a Snicker's bar. (I did have the Snicker's bar at work).

Thirty minutes after my 12-mile run, I worked a 12-hour shift at my job driving a computer. It was a fairly slow day, so I had plenty of time to reflect. On how good the overall soreness felt. And how my knees were not screaming, but my toes were. How deserved the sleepiness was that kept stealing over me and giving me "Locked Eyeball Syndrome". How when I stood up and stretched to shake off the fugue state, it hurt so damn good. And on how amazing this accomplishment felt: it wasn't even the main event! Twelve miles was the longest distance I have ever run in my life. But two weeks from now, I increase that to 13.1!

I thought back to 12 months ago...I was at least 60 pounds heavier, my knees and ankles hurt most of the time (because of the extra weight, not because I pounded pavement for 2+ hours), and I could barely walk to the park bench to watch my son play on the swings.

I also slept with a face mask on to keep me breathing, I was on at least year seven of daily Prilosec intake (who knows what that stuff does to the rest of your body?) and my wife and son had a ticking time bomb slouching around their house.

That Monster Dash Finisher medal with the skeleton has even more meaning to me now - What if I lived? I'm living and loving it. Bring on the 13.1...and whatever comes after it!