I set some pretty ambitious goals this year. While I’ve refused from the very beginning to let the injuries from that hit and run *define* me, I’ve made a conscious choice that I’m no longer going to let it have a negative effect on me either. My back to back solid halves to end last year put me in a good place to start 2018. I am going to ride that momentum. While I’ll never be the same person I was before I got hit… I can choose to make the new me a better me. I’m rebuilding my brain and my body to be what I choose it to be.
Running has been important to me for a good chunk of my life. It shaped me in high school as I grew into a man. Even though I neglected it for so many years, it welcomed me back lovingly. After the emotional trauma I suffered nearly five years ago in Boston – running has brought out the best of me. It has taught me the beauty of life, and the choice of happiness. And then again after the physical trauma from two years ago – running was pretty much the only thing that made me feel alive, and as such may have been what was actually keeping me alive. Clearly it should come as no surprise that my aggressive goals for this year have a lot to do with running.
I will run more miles this year than I ever have.
I will run at least twenty half marathons this year.
I will set several personal bests this year, including a BQ (Boston Qualifier)
Quite simply: I will run this year. Further and faster and more passionately than ever.
But my fitness goals don’t stop there. I’ll be adding in some yoga, stretching and activities of the sort to bring back (and surpass) the balance and flexibility I lost when I got hit. I’ll be adding in more body weight exercises to start building up some strength again, to further protect and heal my injured self. Most importantly though, I’ll continue to become one with myself. To learn my bodies limits, and exactly how far I can push them. Boston taught me everything I needed to know about my inner self: It made me psychologically invincible. Surviving this hit and run will make me physically formidable.
So I’m starting this year off on great path. As tempting as Disney Marathon weekend is…I didn’t get to race it this time around. I’m sure at some point I’ll totally rock the Dopey Challenge. Maybe 2019? 2020? Congrats to all my running family who ran this weekend, at Disney, another race or just a fun run wherever they may have been. 2018 is gonna rock folks. Let’s live it up, one step at a time.