Last Monday morning, Thought Catalog posted "17 Things Running Teaches You About Life." I bookmarked it, hoping to write a post about it later in the day. I never got around to writing about it -- news broke. There was so much news last week. It took me until Thursday to figure out that the best thing to do would be to tune out -- no MSNBC commentary, no Twitter, no Google Reader. Just silence, a bit of running, and reflection.
I thought a lot about running: how I started 30 lbs heavier than I am today, how I ran a marathon without knowing the first thing about running, how much progress I made within the first year, how happy I am that my dad has caught the running bug, and how I wish the rest of my family would catch on.
I thought about how insufferable I must come across in my writing, especially when I complain about not PR-ing at a race. I thought about how silly it is to beat myself up because being able to simply finish a race is amazing. Let's face it, I'm in no way up for any prize money. It would be cool to win my age group, but, at the end of the day, running does not pay my bills. It's something that I do because I like to challenge myself (and have fun doing it). It doesn't matter if I finish 30-seconds slower or 20-minutes slower, as long as I finish.
I thought about how I want to get faster and how I want to be fast enough to run Boston in 2014. After this year, I feel as though I have to get to the starting line in Hopkinton. And, as much as I respect charity runners, I want to get there by earning a BQ -- and, for me, for 2014, that'll be a 3:35 marathon. (Oy...) It's not an impossible goal, but it's definitely going to take a lot of time, effort, and running. And, I'm okay with that.
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