Year 2, Day 185: Sprinting

I wrote a wonderful a post the other night on the back of a scratch paper about sprinting....yeah, it got thrown away before I could type it up. Here is my humble attempt to recapture its brilliance:

I am a sprinter at heart (well, if you read my post for today on my other blog you will also know I am a writer at hear), but what I mean by being a sprinter is I loved sprinting when I was a child - the shout of "go" and running for all your worth, heart pounding, legs stretching, arms pumping and you just move like lightening. Just zoom. I love it.

I was actually quite good at sprinting in high school, one of the fastest.

I'm pretty sure I could not go two feet without collapsing...yeah, we are going to blame that on, um, children? age? hmmm, not sure. But that doesn't matter, what matters is how sprinting works.

To sprint, you run as hard and as fast as you possibly can.

That is what I do in life. I make a goal and I run at it as hard and as fast as I possibly can.

Sadly, so many of my goals are not "sprint" goals, but more like long-distance running goals.

I want to lose weight, I want to be healthy, I want to be "in shape", I want to be fit, I want...well, we will keep this list down to the goals that relate to health and fitness. :)

I can hit the ground "running" to lose weight, but it is NOT a "sprint" goal. Nope, not in the least. To lose weight, you have to eat healthy and exercise. I can't eat healthy today, exercise tomorrow and lose weight on the third day...and even if that did work, it certainly wouldn't work long term.

Long term, I need to eat healthy and exercise (I prefer to say "move") everyday....every. single. day.

Yeah, that is what I call a marathon.

When I was on the track team, I was never good at the long distance running. I could never figure out how to pace myself - to ensure I still had something left at the end of the race. I always pooped out toward the end - lungs heaving, heart pounding and my side hurting.

Except for last year's experiment with walking, I feel like weight lifting/strength training has been my attempt at "sprinting" instead of learning how to pace myself for that "long run."

Instead of beating myself up, I am going to follow the old Chinese proverb (paraphrased), "When you are knocked down 7 times, get up 8."

Happy Walking!