Certified Rollers

It is wild to think that I have been living in Georgia for (roughly) a decade. It won’t officially be 10 years until the summer but I’ve been here since 2010, so I’m rounding up and calling it a decade. After reflecting on that fact and doing some thinking about what I want to accomplish in 2020 and beyond it has occurred to me that I need a goal. Something a little different than the goals that I’ve set over the last couple of years. Something bigger. Something that takes commitment and conscious effort.

Every year, I go through times where I am battling my routine becoming a rut and I feel like that’s bled into more aspects of my life than just my running. Same runs every day have turned into having the same goals and settling in rather than pushing myself. I need to break out of that. I don’t want to be dramatic but I feel like I’ve been on the verge of a little bit of a existential crisis over the last 12-18 months.

It started with the hamstring injury I suffered in September of 2018 and reached a crescendo this year with some of the challenges I’ve faced at work. Rather than try to make some major life change that is either too lofty, too unrealistic, or just flat out won’ stick I want to focus on being more in the moment. I have a bad habit of putting too much pressure on my free time. That has made it harder to enjoy simple things, harder to relax.

My goal for 2020 is to remedy that but setting a singular goal and not expending energy worrying about how I’m spending my free time. It’s okay to do the things you want to do. Sometimes that’s something epic. Sometimes it’s going to be sitting on the couch. Those things are both okay.

This realization, if you can call it that, stems from a couple of different influencing factors. One of those is the fact that I’ve been here for a decade. I’ve done some really cool things during that time. But 10 years seems like a good time to take a look back at those things and ask myself what’s next?

A few months ago, I had an opportunity to hear Jesse Itzler speak. If you aren’t familiar with him, he’s a serial entrepreneur who started out as a rapper writing jingles for NBA teams. He’s built a number of companies including Zico coconut water, he’s written two best selling books and he’s an ultra marathoner. He’s also an owner of the Atlanta Hawks and married to Spanx founder Sara Blakely. He’s an impressive dude.

His accomplishments notwithstanding, there were a couple of things he said that really hit home for me. The first was this refrain that he uses “build your life resume”. I’m not one of these people who is 100 percent on their career. I have to have other things to look forward to and to be interested in. It’s just who I am. When I’m working, I’m locked in – or at least that’s my goal – but when I’m not, I need something else and 99 percent of the time that’s running.

His focus on building a life resume spoke to me. He said the first thing he does at the beginning of each year is get a calendar and write down the things he wants to do that are non-negotiable. He’s not going to let things get in the way of doing those things because they are important to him. Whether it’s a trip with his family or an ultra marathon. If it’s important to him, he’s doing it.

I’m stealing that. I bought a calendar and as part of this post, I’m filling it out with the things that I want to do and or accomplish, especially over the next 6-7 months when I have some free time.

The first thing that’s going on that calendar is my number one goal for 2020.

Side note: This is a little nerve wracking because once you put it out in the universe it’s real.

Number one goal for 2020. Run the Vermont City Marathon.

It will by my first marathon and I am confident that I can run it and run it well, but never having done it before makes me a little uneasy. But that’s why it’s my goal because of that little bit of unease. My goals over the last couple of years have been to vague and too smoothly accomplished. Running a marathon and running it well requires consistency and commitment. Everything I do in the build up will be in service of that goal and that’s what I feel like I’ve been missing.

Why VCM? The first thing about this race that jumped out to me when I was trying to pick a marathon to run was the date. Memorial day weekend. That gives me the next five (or so) months to dedicate to training. That doesn’t mean I’m doing some 25-week marathon plan but I certainly wanted to give myself 15 weeks to do a full training cycle. I want to go in as well prepared as possible.

As far as a time goal or anything like that. I have one in mind, but I don’t necessarily want to make this about running a specific time. Obviously, that’s part of it and something I’ll share as I get closer but to me the journey of training, the trials of miles if you will is the key to this whole thing.

Now, I’m not going to be Quentin Cassidy living a monastic lifestyle while I train. That’s not realistic, but that does bring me to my second influential piece of advice I absorbed recently. This one from a professional athlete I had the chance to listen to. It’s about compartmentalizing, giving 100 percent of your focus to something with the time that you have allotted for it.

That was one of those moments where I immediately pulled out my phone and jotted down a quick note. It was an ah-ha moment for me and again, something that really spoke to me. It’s kind of a distillation of the whole No Days Off thing. It doesn’t necessarily mean run every single day. It’s more of a mindset to make every day count towards your goal. At least that’s how I look at it.

There you have it. The goal for 2020. VCM. As nervous as I am about running a race that’s double the distance I’ve raced before, I’m excited about the unknown and that it will be a full on experience. A trip back to New England. The ability to spend some time with friends and family and a chance to push myself to a place I have not previously been. Really, that’s a goal within the goal.