#goals

I was tempted to frame some grandiose post around this, but then the day went by and meh... Some time last summer after weeks of just sort of idly goofing off at the gym, I finally thought I'd give myself a concrete goal; a mile in 10 minutes on the treadmill. It was miserable but I managed and realized it was not difficult physically, the constraints were entirely mental.

I aspired to be able to run a 5k (5 kilometers = 3.107 ​miles). Knew I could, but it always seemed difficult to imagine. Doing 1.25 miles was hard. So was 1.5. so was 1.75. And 2. I fought to hit each one and then, having proved I was capable of it, never let myself do less.

Funny enough, after 2, none of the other increases were that hard.

Anyway. It's a tiny accomplishment that probably puts me into the elite company of the majority of all healthy adults. But I worked every day at it for months, no one knowing or ​watching. No one holding me to it or caring if I abandoned it.

I think most of the most meaningful things we do in a life are like that. I've been working on a novel even longer and in much the same way.

No real conclusion.

Blurry because I didn't want to stop running before I got the pic. Didn't expect to blow through the 2 mile milestone (just '2 milestone'?) this morning, but here we are! Big step toward my <28 minute 5k New Year's resolution. 🥳

Previous post referring to being back in the swing of things was a bit premature as I wound up spending some time in Nashville for my friend's birthday. So today is really the first day fully back to real-life after the Holidays.

As per New Year Resolutions, I impressed myself by running 1.4 miles at 7mph this morning. Curious how long I could really go. Interesting how much of a mental thing it is. Not like it's totally effortless, but I think my stopping point is largely defined by boredom. Last spring when I really started trying to run, my first big feat was running a ten-minute mile, which amounted to 6mph. So it's progress anyway, though I weighed in at 161.5, representing a holiday accumulation of something like 5-9 lbs...

Church attendance isn't starting well, missing both Sundays thus far, but did start a daily reading plan on the Bible app that I've stuck with and gotten back into my DuoLingo French, which wasn't a resolution but is still nice.

Need to carve out a plan for the short fiction goals, but did take time to review a chapter of Roebuck last night, which I'll hopefully repeat tonight.