Happy New Year's Eve!
I'll get right to the point, writing something-anything, has been a goal of mine for some time. I tried to write poetry back in college and I must say it insults trash bins everywhere. Since them, I've just thought about writing and how great it would be to write on the side...so here I am on the last day of 2018, trying to accomplish one last goal.
It's funny how on December 31st we become so much more cognizant of our goals; both accomplished and unfulfilled. I imagine that it is all about how we are symbolically "turning a page", even though tomorrow is Tuesday, and it follows Monday like all the Tuesdays before it. Luckily for me and my dangerously short attention span, my lifestyle allows me to reinvent, refocus, or altogether change goals almost daily.
Allow me to explain:
- As a Dad to a two year old, I have to have a short memory, both for my son, who is learning about the world for the first time, and for myself, as I make all of the mistakes new(ish) parents are apt to make. This means that I have to forget about the time my son threw a tantrum in the middle of his gymnastics lesson..and it also means I have to forget how poorly I handled that situation and learn to be better. As a parent, I don't have to wait for a 12 month cycle to make amends and start over; it's more like 12 seconds.
- As a teacher, especially to Juniors and Seniors, I have to be ready to own my mistakes in the moment and adjust course the same way you would try to adjust course in a sailboat during a hurricane. If I don't have a short memory, then I would never be able to effectively reach my students. I model for them poor behavior if I let my mistakes eat at me day in and day out. If I were to wait once a year for my mistakes to be forgotten, then my students would have learned nothing and I would have been rendered ineffective as an educator.
- Finally, as a runner. Oof. Being a runner is probably my least experienced and easily the weakest part of my "personality" as it were. I used to hate running. Not just as it existed to serve as a punishment when I played baseball or wrestled, but I hated it so much in all of its incarnations that I was typically the slowest one in any event, regardless of my weight or fitness. I despised, loathed, and detested anything that had to do with running. However, I reached a point in my life where my health and my job as a father necessitated that I partake in some kind of exercise. Unfortunately for me, running is relatively cheap and can be done solo, without a partner or team. At this time, I was broke and all of my friends either worked full time or were in school full time...so it became time to run. Of course, my wife buying me running shoes for my birthday (with little to no prompting on my part) was a clear signal that I needed a change.
With all of these things in mind; my desire to write and the "big 3" things that make up who I am, I decided to start Dad-Teach-Run. I'm not wanting to sell you a fitness plan or congratulate myself on the goals I did accomplish in 2018. Instead, I'm trying to capture that momentum and carry with me into 2019, where hopefully more goals get accomplished!
I teach History and Government to high schoolers, which means I have to justify the study of history to sixteen year olds for a living. However, I do think that we have to study history to know where it is we're going; so it is for my personal journey. What did I (we?) accomplish in 2018? Here's an abridged list as best I could remember:
1. Achieved my 2017 target weight of 185 lbs, down from 215 lbs. (Better late than never, I suppose)
2. Finished the schooling necessary for me to keep my teaching license.
3. Ran more than 5 miles without stopping
4. Consistently ran under a 10:00 minute mile on training runs.
5. Totaled over 200 miles ran (not much, but for a former non-runner, it gives a baseline)
What do I hope to build in 2019? Here's the list:
1. Reach 175 lbs (by the end of 2019) and begin to erase the "dad-bod" that my sympathy eating so graciously provided me.
2. Take at least one more graduate level course to continue my Master's.
3. Run at a 9:00 minute mile pace or less, on average.
4. Run 500 miles over the course of the year, including at least one Half Marathon
Phew, that feels like a ton of writing for an introductory blog post, but it has gotten the writing juices flowing. So at the end of this rant, if you've stuck with me this far (thanks), you might be wondering why it is I'm writing this; is it a journal, a log, a narcissistic back pat? It could be one or all of these things, but hopefully it serves as a record that I can look back on and draw inspiration from. I'll try to write twice a week, but more realistically, probably only once. Who knows? I hope you stay with me.
Thanks for reading, be safe tonight as you ring in the new year, and keep moving forward!
