As I drove to my first race of the new year this morning, I reflected on the past year's race events. It included 2 full marathons, 3 half marathons, a 10k, an 8k, a handful of 5ks, two adventure mud runs, and a sprint triathlon. It's easy to measure my running progress which was derived from a goal to set a new PR for every race distance; I blew that out of the water! My half time is down to 1:54 (x2 this year), and I pulled 7 minutes off my 10k distance too. I even went to Miami to complete one of my races, not my best showing due to the extreme climate change, but it earned me my Rock 'n Roll Triple Crown heavy medal and I got to be in a beautiful and warm place in December with some of my Seattle friends.
As I ran along the trail in Magnuson Park on today's race, it followed part of a route we ran on our very first TEAM practice on April 30th; that was a difficult day for many reasons aside from not having run for months following my first marathon in January. I thought of how far I've come since that day: the friends I've made, the accomplishments in running as well as life, and how much TNT has come to mean to me.
Team in Training (TNT) is a training group that helps prepare people for endurance events, be it a half or full marathon, a century (100 mile) bike ride, or a triathlon of either Olympic or half-Ironman distance. Even people who are coming off the couch ready to change their lives can accomplish these goals; TNT provides the training, support, and encouragement to see you to the finish line. As a participant you agree to fundraise for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (something quite dear to me after losing a friend: I'm Running for Dawn) in exchange for the event preparation and participation. As a group we received detailed coaching and a training schedule, and ran together every Saturday morning for many months. As you can imagine, I've made countless friends and heard some incredible stories of determination, fighting, and sadness about how cancer has invaded the lives of people we may or may not know.
I loved it so much and it meant so much to me and many people in my life (new and old) that I'm doing it again! I'm going to be a mentor for the summer season, where I will assist new participants with their fundraising goals (they offer hundreds of suggestions!) and help field questions about the program and training. My mentor was Liana, who is now a close friend; I hope to impact my mentees' experience as well as she did for me.
My next marathon will be in San Diego on June 3rd, 2012. It will be preceded by the new Portland Rock 'n Roll half marathon in May and followed by the Seattle Rock 'n Roll half marathon in late June. So these are some of my goals for 2012. While not unobtainable, I will have some serious work to do to accomplish these. Yesterday at brunch a friend mentioned John "the Penguin" Bingham's 100-day Challenge: to run a minimum of 1 mile a day (with purpose) every day for 100 days to instill (or re-establish as necessary) running in our lives. "It is all about inspiring intentional movement and a healthy, active, happy lifestyle." What a great motivator to help me bridge between today's race and the first practice which isn't for several weeks!
So while running may or may not be your thing, I encourage you to set some goals for yourself in various areas of your life to make the most of this new year before us. The progress on some goals may not be as easy to measure as a faster race time, but don't give up hope that you have the power to improve your own life when you set your mind to it.
