Wakeup Calls

Back in January, I signed up for the Brooklyn Half Marathon. My thinking was simple: I hadn’t run in a while a race on the calendar would force me back into a running routing.

Unfortunately, I was busy and forgot when the race was scheduled. Every few weeks I’d think about it, acknowledge it, and think “yeah, that’s a future-me problem”. Famous last words.

Well, future “me” has arrived. I was curiously checking my calendar today and realized that I have four weeks until this race. That was a jarring moment - I’ve probably run five times this year and have no idea how I’ll get in shape for this race.

I wish I had begun training earlier, but I have no regrets. I squeezed every bit of juice out of the past few months. This year, I had a stretch where I lifted every single day, cut alcohol, deleted social media, and locked in 8+ hours of sleep. I’ve read three books a month. I visited both sets of grandparents. I launched this blog and started building a video game, a group expense tracking service, and a personalized health coaching app. I also took on more at work than I ever have before. Running hasn’t been my priority for the past few months, but I’m proud of what I did in that time.

Alas, I can confidently call myself a ‘runner’ again as I start training today. The path ahead seems daunting, but I’m excited to go on training runs, enjoy the New York Spring, and push myself on race day.

Onwards!