Why

               Why write a blog when according to several magazines the blog is going by the wayside, being replaced by 140 characters and like buttons? Perhaps because I’m finding that many of friends are suddenly getting back into blogging since our initial forays into the concept during college. Or perhaps because the topics that I now care about seem to be covered in Blogs. Mostly, I just wanted to have some record of the coming events that are sure to shape my life in an amazing fashion.  Yesterday I did an insanely crazy thing, I haven’t done anything this crazy since….well I shouldn’t really put all the details but suffice to say I have done a few crazy things in my life but I digress…yesterday I signed up for the Marine Corps Marathon probably the craziest of crazy.             

                This has been an interesting year, aside from turning 30 which seemed to lack the horrid emotional turmoil that many mention they experience at this arbitrary number. In the last year, the self that I have known and for the most part liked fairly well was completely turned upside down. I graduated with my MBA after spending most of life in the hallowed halls of academia. I left my less than satisfying job without another job lined up. My partner chose to no longer love me and left, leaving me reeling.

                I will admit to spending a few weeks wallowing as learned from my many hours of watching Gilmore Girls. However, through the darkness that became the end of my 29^th year I began to formulate a plan. A cross country road trip, an epic cross country road trip actually. Just me, my GTi, my Kindle and a hiking pack with a goal of seeing the country. The trip was a turning point. Allowing me to unfog my brain, experience amazing beauty that even Ansel Adams awesome photography can’t completely capture and put an insane number of miles on my car.

                I returned with a desire to pursue a different career path. To use my multiple degrees, brain cells and wit to better the forward progress of humanity. This career goal requires successful completion of a Physical Fitness Test (PFT). After realizing that despite hiking into the Grand Canyon (and back out), hiking through almost every national park, and scaling rock formations in The Badlands (and discovering the quick way back down in a head over heels manner) I wasn’t as physically fit as I would like to be so I sought out a trainer that would help me to pass the PFT.

                The first two weeks were brutal, there was vomit and sweat and swear words and lots of ice and that was just the first day. However, after the initial two weeks I realized I enjoyed spending my mornings running, flipping tires, lifting weights and doing seemingly superhuman tasks. I realized it was about more than a PFT. (Which subsequently I won’t be taking for a couple years due to budget cuts.) It was about a new me. A more focused me. A more physically fit me. I also realized that as I worked out the less positive events that had happened over the last few months began to lose their intensity. Their presence in my life began to dissipate and were no longer the driving force in my life. The thoughts that if I completed certain set tasks my old life would return no longer took up space in my brain box.  I found that as that way of thinking dissipated it was replaced with clearer thinking and a new sense of self, a sense of doing this for myself and not for someone else who chose not to be in my life.

                While running warm up laps yesterday at boot camp I found myself with a clear head. It was just me focusing on the timing of my stride, hearing the thud of my footfalls on the astro-turf soccer field. It was freeing. In that moment of quiet I decided I needed to achieve something that I thought was impossible. I had already signed up for a multitude of races from April until September, various obstacle laden races requiring fortitude and really good shoes and a like of mud. But I wanted more. For once in my life I wanted to go completely balls to the wall for something that seemed out of my reach and completely insane. There when I returned home on Twitter was the reminder about the Marine Corps Marathon. There was my answer for a completely insane task.

                I admire Jason Jaksetic who is doing several months worth of insane things. (Here is his blog http://jasonjaksetic.blogspot.com and while you’re at it please send him peanut butter). His efforts inspired me but I have learned that inspiration must come from within. It’s helpful to admire others and their efforts but to really be inspired to get off the couch and run for hours you have to be inspired by something that comes from deep down where your finger nails grow. (That is a favorite saying of my minister)

                The surface response to the question of why I’m doing this is blog: to have a record of what I’m doing. The deeper answer of why I’m doing this; this being defined as going after an insane goal: it’s exciting and keeps me from going insane. Because it’s something I can do and it’s something I will do.