Why Did I Make a Blog?

Anyone who knows me knows that I am constantly on the go. Whether it’s to the gym, to classes, or hockey practice, I always make myself busy. In this day and time that seems to be a common theme amongst the general population.

I have to say, although my abundance of activities may stress me out, I enjoy the activities because they occupy my mind and keep me around people I value in my life. Also, when things in my life have not been going quite as well as I hoped, they provide a welcome distraction and keep me from wallowing in self-pity.

Having just finished what was quite possibly the roughest spring semester of my college career (in terms of life changes and other factors) I have decided to add another activity to my list this summer: Training for my first half-marathon. Why of all the activities to choose from did I choose this one? I have many reasons, but the following are the least complicated.

1.)  I routinely make impulse decisions. When life gets me down, my response is usually to do something adventurous or something that challenges me and provides a welcome distraction. It gives me a major sense of self-fulfillment and I have something else to focus on (for a short amount of time). Even when life is going just fine, my knack for making fly by the seat of my pants decisions helps divert my attention, even if only temporarily, from the negativity of day to day life. This half-marathon sign up was a snap decision made one morning while I lay in bed reading a Runner’s World article about half marathon training. I read through the training process and immediately began searching for half-marathons near my location 16 weeks from then. And then I sent in the race deposit without a second thought.

2.)  I have something to prove to myself. For the past several months I have not been looking for validation from myself, but from others. In relying on others to make me feel confident and happy, I have not found true self-confidence or happiness. Many people can tell you that you are an awesome human being (which is probably true!) but until you can prove it to yourself, it often sounds like empty words.  Last summer I summer I said I was “training” for a half-marathon I started out doing just that. However, I let my plan fall apart by not actually choosing a race and sealing the deal with the race deposit and I let a minor injury keep me from reaching my mileage. If we’re being honest, I could have trained the rest of the summer and still had enough time to get my miles but at that point I wasn’t fully invested and was not tied down to a race so I felt that I didn’t owe myself anything by following through on my goal (which is why I sent the deposit in before training started so I’m tied to this race now). So of this training period/race time I hope to improve my mental strength greatly because that’s what always hurts my performance (or lack there of).

3.)  I’m looking for who I really am as a person. Sometimes in life we get so wrapped up in our own lives or people in our lives and we lose sight of our goals and dreams. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t put others first at times, but during some seasons of your life being able to know who you are as a person is a valuable and necessary thing. For the last few years I feel like I have been pushing myself to the background and have been putting my copious amounts of activities and the activities or needs of friends, significant others, and family ahead of my own. Let me tell you- that is draining. I’m hoping through this training, in addition to the previously listed points, to have some time that I have set aside for myself where I can find out just who I am. Yes, I’ll have to be focused on the training as well, but when I reach my 10 mile (and up) runs, it’ll be nice to have something to actively work on instead of focusing on how much that side stitch hurts.

So, I guess this concludes my first post of my training journey. I hope to update this blog at least once a week, maybe more depending on how my jobs, training, and summer classes work into my schedule. Thank you for reading through this and if you also are completing summer training, I wish you the best of luck. 

-Del

*Each time I post I will try to post a countdown to race day. As of right now we are 15 weeks, 1 day away from the race.