Day 30: Double the Challenge, Double the Fun

Here it is, the end of the year.  I am shocked, shocked (!) I say that it happened again, this whole orbiting around the sun thing.  Again with that.  This is all rather ironic, because I am someone who loves a schedule, gets giddy over a fresh new calendar, and makes a living overseeing someone else’s appointments.  But for the last five years when the end of the year comes, I get a little anxious.  I can pause it enough to adore Thanksgiving Day and revel in my actual birthday, but everything else from November until January 2 has me on edge.  It’s a long story…

So this year, I decided to squeeze in one more timed running event, a real bitch of one too, the North Face Endurance Challenge Half Marathon on December 5th.  Just to keep it interesting, I will be four days into being age 39 on the day of the race.  I wonder if it changes my bracket?  I think it is fitting that this race features four intense hill climbs over the 13.1 miles, because I cannot think of a more precise metaphor for the year I have had.  While 2008 had some important breakthroughs and milestones and FUN, 2009 has been a Groundhog Day ridden slog punctuated by some of the most serious, stressful, shocking circumstances people have to face in a lifetime.  And this was me and my people facing them!  The blessing though is that I have never been more equipped to handle them, whether it was offering support, or asking for it for myself.  So bring on the damn hills!

I have also decided to add one more challenge to my challenge, and that is to write about it.  Every night that I run, I wish I had some kind of stenographer cruising along side me on a scooter, just jotting down my every blurted thought, turn of phrase, or epiphany.  Without my steno, I get in the house, high on adrenaline and songs, and by the time I have removed the dogs’ harnesses, all my thoughts have fallen out of my brain.  D’oh!  And if I hear one more time that I should be/need to/why aren’t you writing and offer some b.s. excuse, well then, I might not have learned anything in 2009.  And of course, I will include some basic stuff about the training.  There will be Aches and Pains, Song Reports, Goofy Moments of Nature Love, Sanity and Vanity, Non Sequiturs etc and so forth.  Tonight I ran 5.5 miles in 52 minutes in total darkness, save for the puplights and the ambient light bouncing off the low clouds.  It was beautiful.  Also the first night I ran in long pants since winter.

I am excited and I hope I can pull it off.  Even though crazy Facebookland is still so new to us humans and we are so not emotionally equipped to handle the access to this kind of info about each other, I do think at its best it connects us and it certainly has done that for me.  I love reading about your lives, even if in short bursts, or photos, or links, or even about your lost FarmVille sheep, or your kid’s soccer game, or your heartbreaks, or your triumphs, or how you broke a nail today.  I will likely be tagging you if I mention you or I particularly want you to read an entry, so do it.  I am inspired by so many of you and if I can tell you that because I pounded out some miles in your honor that alone makes me happy to have expressed it in writing.  And if I don’t tag you, I might know your preference for discretion, so don’t get all sad, just read.  Comments, on point and for god sake’s witty, are welcomed.  But I reserve the right to delete them if I think there are offensive to the gang.

Thanks friends and family, you’re all that matters to me.

Click “Comments” below to see comments from original FB posts.