What Running Has Given Me, Part One.

I have always been a romantic. It shows in my decision-making. When I have a big decision to make, at some point in the process, I usually take a moment to close my eyes and imagine my future self in each of the possible scenarios I am deciding between. I Marie Kondo my decisions, and whichever scenario gives me more joy is usually the direction I lean towards. When I was deciding where to go to undergrad, my dad encouraged me to go to the local community college. His argument was that that was what he could afford at the time. If I got my Associate’s degree and then transferred to a four-year college, I would end up with much less debt. My mom, on the other hand, told me that I was much too smart to go to a community college and that I should follow my dreams. So I went to a very expensive small liberal arts college in L.A. County because L.A. sounded like much more fun than community college in Chicago. I’m still paying off the loans for that school, and I have never once used my Economics degree.

After graduation, I was offered a consulting position in Los Angeles. I decided I didn’t like LA anymore, though, and made the romantic decision again. I moved to the Bay Area to live with a friend who was enrolled in UC Berkeley Law School. I had no job or even a plan. I thought about law school. I sat in on one of my friend’s classes and took the LSAT, but in the end decided it wasn’t for me. I wound up working for a very small nonprofit organization consisting of just me and my boss. I was basically his secretary. After about a year of that, I wanted more. I quit my job, moved back home for a bit, then decided to go to Mexico. My plan went as far as an ESL certification program which would last one month. I ended up staying 18 years.

While in Mexico, I got married, had kids, got divorced, and started running. It was only four months into running that I ran my first half marathon. Right away, I knew I wanted to run a full. I found myself a coach and, for the first time ever, a plan. My coach, Martin, explained how we would build up mileage over the months, and how we would work in speed and strength work. It wasn’t a five-year plan, but five months was longer than any long-term goal I had ever had before.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once said, “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” Until I ran my first marathon, I had only wishes. So, this is the first thing running has given me. Training for a marathon taught me how to set a goal, make a plan to reach that goal, and how to carry through the plan to accomplish the goal. Crossing that first marathon finish line was one of the best days of my life. To this day, when people ask me what I like about running a marathon, I tell them that it is making a plan and accomplishing a goal that was once thought unattainable. I have learned to set a future goal and plug away each day towards that goal. I have learned that no individual day will make or break the progress, but consistency is what matters most. I learned that even when I make a romantic decision with my heart, when I put a little head into it, my wish can become a goal.