giving rise to action; staying fit and sane through running
The second half of 2012 marked a comeback for me after herniated disks sidelined me for close to a year. Months of physical therapy gave way to a very patient approach to running again. I gradually increased mileage until I felt comfortable entering a 5k and over the course of the next six months made my way back up to a 10-mile race in early December. All the while I visualized myself as a strong, capable runner, accomplishing each milestone. Read more
I was going to publish something totally different today and then this morning this “memory” from 2014 popped into my Facebook news feed:
What I’m positive about/thankful for…Day 5 of 5…
1. I can run, as it may be the only thing that’s keeping me sane (I’m also thankful for my amazing coach, Rob McCarthy, who also has me running fast, which is keeping my self esteem at an all time high);
2. I’m thankful for my friends…all of you…and especially a few in particular (who I won’t call out here in fear that someone not included may feel slighted)…the really special ones – you know who you are – you have been there when I needed you, you knew when to make me laugh, when to just listen, when I needed a pep talk, you knew the right thing to say, or knew when it was best to say nothing at all , you’ve made the last 5 months fly by and made sure I knew I was a survivor. Thank you!
3. And finally, my dog, because when all else fails, I never doubt that at least HE loves me.
If you are in business, you plan. You work a plan in order to meet the goals of your position and your organization. Personally, you probably plan vacations. You make meal plans and follow recipes. Hopefully you have a budget and financial plan. If you are a runner like me, you probably have meticulously planned out your race calendar with a couple of big goal races, smaller races, and have built a training plan for the season, or maybe the entire year, around it.
But do you have a life plan? You probably have a vision of what your ideal life looks like “somewhere down the road,” but are you planning for it? Or are you simply living one day at a time figuring that everything will just fall into place? Once in awhile we get lucky and we do wind up where we want to be. More often than not though, we find ourselves at a crossroads and unprepared.
My father was from the Bronx. My mother grew up in Queens. The Bronx, home to the New York Yankees, was certainly the “cooler” borough of the two. As a kid, I’m not sure I knew anyone from Brooklyn. Historically, the Irish settled in the Bronx and Queens. Can’t recall ever going to Brooklyn. Although, my father told stories about horrendous subway rides back from a day at Coney Island – after sustaining blistering sunburns on his fair Irish skin – back before the train cars were air-conditioned. He always said he’d take me to Coney Island to ride the Cyclone. He never did.