How Do You Eat an Elephant?: New Year's Resolutions . . . . The OUC Half Marathon Race Report. . . Living Dangerously

Today I slept past 9am for the first time in (literally) months. So I'm finally putting away my stuff from the Thanksgiving trip. (Don't laugh; I am aware that Thanksgiving was weeks ago. Working several jobs, Christmas decorations, races, being sick . . . it all gets in the way.)

Anyway. I came upon both this year's OUC Half Marathon shirt and last year's. I realized that, at this time last year (December 5, 2009), I was finishing with one of the slowest times I have ever run a half marathon. Inspired, I grabbed my Polar and reviewed the splits from this year's race:

11:52 going out easy
11:20 Feeling good, getting faster
11:01 Girl all in black trying to catch up with me . . .too early for the Pain Cave
10:57 (Somewhere around this mile they started playing "Bulletproof" . . . I'm going
BALLS OUT
10:40 Girl all in black disappears. Enter the Pain Cave
10:36 Long ago dusted the Team in Training athletes
10:31 Chicked a bunch of firefighters; maybe I entered the Pain Cave too soon?
10:33 Time to run 15k pace; Pain Cave here I come
10:44 the Pain Cave has been entered big time . . . definitely too soon
11:18 Only 5k left /even if I walk the last 3 miles I'm PRing - girl all in black passes me :(
11:57 (Somewhere around here I saw a sign that said "Born to Run")
13:09 Screw walking, I want a sub-2:30 finish
11: 41 Emerging from the PAIN CAVE

Side note : looks like I pushed too hard between miles 5 and 8. I basically went out as hard as I could after mile 5.

In any case, there's only one 13-minute lap in that race. My SLOWEST LAP from this year's race is an entire minute and a half faster than last year's ENTIRE RACE.

In other words, Things Are Looking Up for The MAJ.

So I got to thinking, Why Complain? I know a lot of things bother me every day. . . . the weather, my allergies, my boyfriend's nonsense. But are any of these things honestly problems when I'm making leaps and bounds emotionally and physically?

Probably not.

So, this year's New Year's Resolution list is topped by this whopper right here:

COMPLAIN LESS
aka
BE MORE GRATEFUL

It's followed by a couple I've been trying to do for years: make fewer value judgements, sail, ski, travel more, and save more money.

Remember THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY? At the end of 2007, I made a massive declaration that I was finally going to SACK UP. I was determined to do everything I'd never done, to be braver and gutsier in all aspects of my life.

At the time, I laughed at the comments of my bloggie friends. One said she was going to hide in the corner with her blankie; one called it "risk-taking."

I thought they were taking me too seriously, but, in retrospect, "living dangerously" was exactly what I did . . . . but I had intended it metaphorically and NOT literally. I certainly didn't intend for that year to be so wild; it was SUPPOSED to be just about expanding horizons.

BUT I did intend to pursue the things I'd always been too scared to do. And I still do. So, I'm re-committing myself to the part of that goal, of that year, that made sense and still makes sense and was always my true intention: expanding my horizons by doing things I've always hoped to do. Not huge things like sky-diving and telling off my boss; smaller things like not being afraid to tell a friend my opinion and going skiing for the first time. And making more PR's. And fundraising and building my business.

You know what The Year of Living Dangerously taught me? It taught me that, as backward as it sounds, in order to do big, scary, and metaphorically dangerous things, you first have to do small, sane, realistic things.

For example.

If you want to train for a marathon, you first have to start with shorter runs, educate yourself about the sport, etc. You don't just jump outta bed and run 26.2
If you want to speak your mind more, you start with small things, like "that plant doesn't look as good there as it did in the other corner," You don't just start blurting your opinion at people like you have Tourette's.
If you want to sky-dive, you have to find a certified instructor, do your research, and get educated. You don't just jump out of a plane headfirst because you want to.

If you don't do the small, sane, realistic things, your metaphorically dangerous goals aren't exciting or courageous, they're stupid (or even deadly). So, when I thought I was being gutsy by swearing off my responsible, Goody-Two-Shoes past in order to achieve a bigger, bolder future . . . I was, in some ways, doing just the opposite.

But, thankfully, there is one other thing from that declaration that I know was sane and still applicable.

It is never too late to be the person you always wanted to be.

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