Shower Epiphanies

I never really thought blogging was something I'd ever do. I'm not very good at keeping a consistant journal, mostly because I never really have much to say (or more likely I'm too spastic to focus on any one thing for more than like 35 seconds). I have a personal journal, but I've had it since Summer 2006, when I spent two months in Ecuador. Needless to say, the entries, while not too few, are certainly far between. Other endeavors to maintain the writing skills that I so diligently exercised throughout my collegiate education include my three-day-old running journal (which was free with my subscription to Runner's World which I haven't actually paid for). But only because I only have to write three or four sentances (legs tired, shins sore, should have hydrated, drinking until 3am probably resulted in that pile of vomit on 23rd and Lex even though it's 9am on Sunday morning).

So ultimately, blogging which, by definition, requires constant attention, daily maintenance, and a certain ability to be completely honest while still being discreet, is not something I think I will be good at. But, as with many things in life, we'll see.

Anyway, today in the shower I decided that I needed a goal. (No, not setting up a blog. I don't like writing that much.) I recently decided to run my first marathon. The Virginia Beach Shamrock Marathon on March 22, 2009 to be exact. But I thought "A lot of people run marathons -- how am I any different?". So I thought I would try to trump myself. Create a goal so lofty, yet still possible, that I would seriously have to push myself extremely hard to achieve it...

I am going to run 30 marathons by the time I turn 30.

Keep in mind, I haven't run one marathon. Ever. I've run two half marathons, a 10k, and a 5k. That's it. I haven't ever run a distance longer than 13.1 miles at one time. But in the shower this morning, I decided that I could push myself to race 26.2 miles 30 times in the next 6.5 years. That averages 5 marathons a year. Some people do one marathon in their lifetime and I'm trying to do 5 a year for the next SIX years. Nevermind injury, mental exhaustion, and a host of other factors that could absolutely kill this goal for me. This basically means for the next six years I will be constantly training, keeping a pretty strict diet, and traveling. A lot. I don't even know if this is a realistic goal. I could HATE running marathons (but my feeling is that I won't).

I should probably set some rules for this, so that I can stay motivated and so that in six years, I can say that I did what I set out to do. So here they are (amendable at will...a caveat that any good employee at a law firm would include):

1. I must complete 30 marathons by the time I am 30 years old. Should I walk, run, crawl, crutch to the finish line, I must finish.

2. I will run the 30th marathon on my 30th birthday: May 30th, 2015 (which happens to be a Saturday and I'm pretty sure, a sign from God that this is something that I am meant to do). (This bars any injury that I may have at that time. If I am injured at that time, I will give myself until the end of 2015 to complete my 30th. That is the only caveat to this rule.)

3. If I complete an Ironman, the marathon run at the end of the Ironman can count (hey, 26.2 miles is 26.2 miles, no matter how you slice and dice. But seriously, if I have time to train for an while also completing 4 marathons in that year then I'm out of my mind).

Those are all the rules I have at this point. I'm sure I'll think of some others as I'm training, but right now, those seem to be the most obvious ones. This blog in particular will serve as a daily (or weekly or monthly or however-many-times-I-can-get-my-butt-to-post-ly) training log toward my goal (but who the heck wants to read about running all the time. If anything else interesting happens in my life, I'll be sure to post about it. I'm not much for secrets and if you're reading this, you obviously know me, and therefore you're certainly one for gossip.)

So thirty by thirty is my new goal. I hope in 6 1/2 years I'll be able to write a blog entry that says I am out of my mind, but I completed my 30th marathon (or something along those lines).

Make you a deal: you keep reading, I'll keep running.