run fail

i've failed again!

my 30 miles in 30 days, i came in 1.9 miles under the limit. technically, i could have done it. but i didn't. i ran out of time. i wanted to run. but i had far too many other things going on. every time i thought oh i can squeeze another small run in here, i didn't. so i guess it's back to the drawing board. i can try again. maybe this month. maybe not. who knows. it's gonna be another crazy month but hopefully i'll be able to do something.

i finished the tuftonboro 5k in 27 minutes. that's not so bad. it was a pretty good course. i think i'd do it again. i was telling erik this was the first race i've ever been in that i actually wanted to do well in. that's strange, right? why would you do races if you don't want to succeed? well, technically for me and i'm assuming for a lot of other people i do succeed. only my measure of success is against myself not against super runners. people who run all the time. people whose lives revolve around running. that's not me. i'm more of a free spirit when it comes to running. if i start to get stressed out, i go for a run. if i'm feeling fat or frumpy, i go for a run. if i need to clear my head, i go for a run. i don't need to run for anyone else but myself. which is nice. but it doesn't win any races.

this race i wanted to do well in because i had people counting on me. i was running as a "sponsored" runner. i was running for follansbee landscaping. and because of this, i actually wanted to do something for more than just myself. that's a lot of pressure you know. especially when you're counting on your body and your body is a product of what you do with it.

i recently read this article about the slowest generation. my generation. well, maybe just a year or two under my generation. i'm gonna say my generation was the start of it but we still have some umph. i've watched articles about the rise of running. about how people started races. about how the nyc marathon got it's roots. but then here we came. this generation that was raised in a "you can do anything you set your mind to matter". a generation who's parents had been hippies. (maybe that was just me.) and who truly believed anything was possible.

the downfall of anything being possible is that ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. to limit yourself sounds harsh. who stays with one job? who stops going to school? you can be anything! you can do anything! why stop?!?! (that's a story for another time.)

so here's the slowest generation. the generation that gets an award just for being there. just for showing up. a generation without pain, without heartache, without .... drive. if you never lose, if you get a medal just for trying what's the point? why try hard? why put any effort into it? why bother?

it reminds me of this skit from louis c.k. we aren't feeling. we aren't feeling like winners. we aren't feeling like losers. instead of competing, we're gliding. instead of doing something to better ourselves, we're rewarding ourselves with beer. we reward ourselves for the thought of the effort. go me. i may or may not accomplish this but yay. look at me "trying". maybe we just actually need to want something we can't have. or maybe we just need to feel something. or maybe we just need to be punched in the face so we can remember why we're doing things in the first place. i'm all for a happy go lucky attitude toward life but i also think we need to have something to believe in. something to feel. something to want so bad we would do anything to accomplish it.

if everyone just gets to do whatever they want... what's the point?