Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Setting Goals - looking ahead

I think I'm official in mid-life.  I'm 45, which means that if I think I'll live until I'm 90, I'm at the mid-way point of my life.  As a result, unknowingly, I have found myself contemplating my life (thus the failure post a few weeks back) in different ways.  When I was young I wanted to change the world (don't we all?).  When I started working, I just wanted to do good work and help people and maybe get recognized a bit for my hard work.

Now I just want to survive the day.  Well, not exactly "survive", but many days feel that way.  I do want to do good work and help people, but I no longer care if my efforts are recognized or not, likely because in my line of work the "thanks for your help" acknowledgments are very rare.  In fact, I have saved every thank you note over my 20 year career and I can count them on one hand (including those as short as a sticky note attached to payment that says nothing more than "thanks so much!").

I also have found that I care less about the words of thanks from clients and co-workers and care significantly more about the time I spend with Chad & the kids.  I've found myself considering how I can work less, bill less, and play more.  I find myself thinking about how life is happening and I feel more like a spectator than a participant.  I know this isn't true and I/we do all kinds of fun things every day (well, most days).  But I feel like I'm more and more sucked into the daily grind of "just getting through the day" and that it's only going to get worse as the kids are more and more busy with their own lives.

The result of this, as I think about it, has been my push for time with the kids, mostly time running.  The memories I'm making running with them single week are huge for me, even though I know they are often bored when running with mom.  The moments we share, especially on the trail and when we're one on one are not necessarily prime photo opportunities, but they are burned into my brain, both snippets of watching the kids leap over rocks and obstacles and the intimate discussions we have.  So, I've set them on a path of reaching for goals and feeling the enjoyment of reaching them.  And they have done well, and are proud of their hard work and efforts (as am I).

And I've set goals for myself and have found the joy of reaching them as well. Half marathons, marathons, back to back multi-day running races, a few bike races, and even a few tris (have I mentioned how terrified I am of drowning?).  Each has brought its own challenges and rewards.  This year, I think because I'm still striving for new goals, I finally wanted to find a way to run a sub-2:00 half marathon.  My old ways were not working.  While I had brought my time down from just over 2:20 in 2005 to just under 2:03 in 2015, I couldn't get to that magic 9:09/mile pace.

So I decided to do something for me, just for me, and hired a running coach.  This was one of the most selfish, but also one of the most rewarding, things I have done.  Most of what I do is for someone else, really pretty much everything I do except when I run is for someone else.  So spending money on something that benefits no one but me felt wrong, but over time has come to feel like the most important investment I could make.  She has kicked my butt day in and day out for several months.  She has taught me that what I thought was "really hard pace" was actually only "sort of hard pace."  She has taught me that I have nothing to prove to anyone but myself (though I've also realized that I still have much to prove to myself), she has believed in me when I didn't believe in myself and yes, she has trained me to run a sub-2:00 half--not once but twice in about 3 months.  The first time I broke my PR by almost 4 minutes, running a 1:59:08 and the second a 1:57:23 (sub-9:00/mile pace).  Wahoo!

So now where do I go?  What goals do/should I have in my sights?  Do I continue to try to get faster (did I mention I'm 45 years old and have asthma?!)?  Do I try to take some time off my marathon PR (which isn't all that fast)?  Or maybe, just maybe, I start wondering if I might have it in me to run an ultra...  A 50k isn't really all that much more than a marathon, right?  I'm guessing those 5 extra miles could feel like eternity, but maybe, just maybe, there's only one way to find out.  I've got time to contemplate, as my racing season is over for 2017.  But, I am looking for new goals to reach, new times to set, new hurdles to overcome.  Some day I'll be too old, too tired, too something to continue seeking these kind of challenges, and I know someday my time will eventually run out.  But today is not that day, and until that day comes I will keep looking for ways to push myself to make the second half of my life even better than the first was.

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