This is the best photo I could grab. Waiting for the ones I purchased to arrive.
My LA Marathon is done, in the books, and checked off my Life List. Whoo-hoooo! Now what?
After all that build up – 17 weeks of it for Shauna, Dolores, Laura, and me – it’s only logical there would be some sort of adjustment afterward. So . . . what do you do then? You move on to your next adventure. Whether it be big, like climbing a mountain or running a marathon, or small, like hiking a new trail or taking a cooking class, you should always have a goal, a project, an adventure in the works.
We need things to reach for, strive for, and work toward. Otherwise life becomes stagnant and just a matter of surviving at best, and waiting to die at worst. I say LIVE. Live BIG. Live every day of your life to the fullest. Why just plod along, making excuses for not really going after your dreams? Why end your life with a big pile of regrets?
Sure you have commitments and responsibilities that may keep you from taking off and traveling the world at a moment’s notice. (Though I would challenge even that idea.) Have goals and dreams and Life List activities of all shapes and sizes. Big ones like marathons or small ones like participating in a mud fight. Have physical goals, activity goals, skill goals, adventures you want to try, new experiences you want to have.
I knew exactly what was next on my list before I ever started running my marathon on Sunday. Here’s what’s coming up for me.
- Run 2 legs of the Are You Tough Enough race. This is a 60 mile relay race, with a ton of elevation gain and loss. I’ve wanted to do this for years (mainly because the name of the race seems to be taunting me) so I’ve joined with some friends on The Missing Toenails. I started my training 48 hours after finishing the marathon and will be running it on April 10th.
- Run the Chardonnay Run on April 18. It’s a 10 mile run here in Santa Barbara. Doing this one just for fun and to enjoy the great scenery and all that I learned training for the marathon.
- Read Kathy Freston’s books, Quantum Wellness and The Quantum Wellness Cleanse and do the 21 day cleanse.
- Have a pie/cake fight for my birthday. I know this sounds weird, but ever since watching The Great Race as a kid, I’ve wanted to be in a big cake or pie fight. So I’m just going to do it for my 46th birthday party.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0BOOgW7rHE] - Return to racquetball. I used to play all the time. I’d like to get a membership at the YMCA, teach Shauna to play, and do that as my second workout a few times a week.
These are a few of the things that I’m going for between now and when Shauna and I leave for Africa in late May. Just thinking about them is getting my heart pumping. I’m so00 not down or bummed that my personal Everest has been climbed(the marathon). I’ve got hundreds of things on my list. I was even looking forward to those five things I listed and daydreaming about them while I was running my 26.2 miles on Sunday.
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