What's Next? Part 2

Today I left work, mindlessly taking the same route to my car as I always do. Get into the elevator for the parking garage, get out, turn left, walk over to the second row, second pillar in the set of six spaces, silver car - bam. There it...isn't. There's a silver car, but it looks different than mine. "Interesting," I think to myself, noting things about "my" car that I've never noticed before. Press the unlock button on my keys. Nothing. I look around at the other cars, to see if perhaps I parked in a different space than I usually do. Retrace my morning routine in my head, trying to remember if I left during lunch or for a meeting in another building without remembering. No, the more I think and shake myself out of my thoughtless stupor, the more sure I am that I did not go out for lunch in my car, and my manager drove to that one meeting. So, where's my car? Try pressing the button a couple of times, pointing it at other random silver cars, and still nothing. Turn slowly around in a circle, and finally notice...I'm on P3, not P2.

All the other mental exercising about reliving my day auto-wise has taken my reserves from me, so I can't even begin to fathom how I wound up on P3 instead of P2, especially considering there was no one else with me in the parking garage elevator. I have only myself to blame.

I don't mind telling you it got my heart pumping a bit faster.

There are better ways for aerobic exercise though - and ones that I prefer to wonder who's committed grand theft auto on my car.

I noted the other day that I plan on doing the Huntsman 140 bike ride fundraiser for cancer research (or is it the 75? TBD.). I also mentioned that there are things I'd like to do; should be doing. Today I got specific with those things. As long as goals remain vague, accomplishing them will also be vague and utterly undoable.

2012 (what's left of it) goals:
Run 50 miles by the end of the year.
Bile 50 miles by the end of the year.

The running one is going to be a bit tricky since I'll be cutting down on my running by one day a week. I'm picking up the Tuesday morning spin class at the gym (again), so there's one day a week I won't be able to run. It means getting in about 16 miles a week on average.Most weeks I run three to four days, averaging 3.5 miles each time. Lately I had been adding more mileage on getting ready for the 10K. I had anticipated that number going down sharply starting next week as I start to get ready for the Huntsman ride.

But.

Vague goals...remember those? I'm making one more concrete, for next year:

Run a half-marathon.

There, I said it. That means that now I'm committed. Perhaps I should be committed, but I'm committed. (That gets funny if you let it gestate for a bit.)

I've been limiting my goals based on my perceived limitations of myself. There is no growth or progress that way. So I've decided to lift all self-perceived limitations and just go for it. Why not run 13 miles within three and a half hours (the time limit set for the event I've selected)? That's a 15 minute/mile pace, and I can do that easily now. Factoring in fatigue and soreness and endurance, I should be able to do that. The goal I've set for myself is to do complete it in 2 1/2 hours. Totally doable.

Part of my motivation in doing this, or the reasoning for not setting limits on myself is learning last week that Eddie Izzard, a British comedian, ran 43 marathons in 51 days in 2010.

Forty-three days of 26.2 miles each of those days. This is a man with no formal running training of any kind. He spent two weeks training, then just went and did it. He was 47 years old at the time. He essentially ran six days out of every seven. And he got better each time. He finished, and that's the important thing.

I've had some practice at running. If he can do all that, I can do a measly 13 miles. Thirteen point one, to be precise.