26.2

Everyone these days is blogging about bucket lists and life goals. On Sparkpeople, a blogger friend even made her top 10 list and went through them one by one over a three month period. Another blogger finally saved up enough to buy her plane ticket to Alaska. And a third, got a Star Wars tattoo.

I've posted life goal lists on past blogs before. From what I've gathered, I've managed to accomplish:

1. Graduate with a degree in music
2. Be in a relationship longer than one year
3. Travel to Europe
4. Win a speech team event
5. Live in my own apartment in the city
6. Buy a car
7. Learn guitar (sort of in the process)
8. Perform professionally
9. Get an A in clarinet juries
10. Teach music at a school
11. Get health insurance... seriously
12. Run a 5K
13. Take a dance class
14. Sell some art work
15. Pay off my credit cards (they were paid off for three months!)

All in all, I'm doing great. There are still some major ones to be done- like get married, have a family, backpack South America (or just visit Buenos Aires), and see a World Cup game.

I was once told that the best thing to ever come out of Buenos Aires was the musical Evita. I then threw up a bit.

But my biggest goal on the unfinished, but working on it, list is to run a full marathon by the time I'm 30 (preferably at 25-26).

All of my life, I've hated running. I was always the slowest mile runner during the dreaded Presidential Fitness Tests, and I took a lot of flack for it. Seriously, gym class for an overweight pre-teen can scar a girl for life- so much so that I do have a bit of anxiety whenever I run in public for fear of being too slow.


But even at 10-11-12, I wanted to be a distance runner. I wanted to be the girl on cross country (Sue Heck, anyone?) with the long skinny legs in the shifty running shorts. In the winter, I wanted to go on polar bear runs in lycra while gliding across the ice I usually fell on. Even with all this "want," I was always to insecure to make myself go out and actually run.

"I love cross country! That's running, right?" - Sue Heck

When I started college, I realized that I would have to commit myself to fitness because my body was certainly not going to tolerate the limited food choices of the EC cafeteria and the self-hibernation I had put myself through. I joined a gym and started to walk more and more, eventually adding hills and fast walking intervals. Soon after, I discovered C25K, which led me to run my very first 5K right after I graduated. My time was nothing to write about, but it was a dream come true either way.

I stopped running when I moved to my last suburban stop. I gave every excuse in the book why I wouldn't bring myself to keep plugging outdoors. And that hiatus lasted until September of this year when I began to run again. My goal to run an outlandish 26.2 miles didn't really pop up until read a blog about a girl who ran her first marathon. For some reason, it hit me that this is what I want to do.


I want to fully understand that my body can do amazing things and perservere through winter weather, aches and pains, hills and potholes. I want to see how far I can physically and mentally push myself to overcome any past anxiety I may have in regards to running. And I want to know that I accomplished something that only a few people have and can.

So every day, I am preparing myself for that future marathon. Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays are spent at the gym running intervals or testing out my newest distance. Or I'm cross training with spin bikes and ski machines. I'm following strength training programs specifically for endurance running. On my days off, I do yoga and pilates to tone and stretch muscles I haven't seen since I was 14 or I'm working on my core strength. Every day, I'm working on preparing myself for 26.2 miles of war on my body.

Somewhere, a Russian is laughing at you while injecting himself with steroids.

I see that so many people posts lists of things they want to do or accomplish, but I've learned that if you are not actively working on your dreams, then what is the point? Nothing in your life is holding you back from making it a reality. If you want to go to Japan to see the blossoms, save up your money and buy a Japanese language book. If you want to sky dive, buy the damn groupon. And if you want to run a marathon, train like you can run a marathon.