Time for a personal decision

Many of you will be relieved to know that I am getting closer and closer to making a personal decision to train again in a way that is more than just some disorganized fitness jogging.  I'm not sure what the training will look like, or what the short-term and long-term goal will be, I just know that I have that uneasy feeling of unfocused energy that has preceded several bouts of semi-serious training.  I don't see gangbusters all-in crazy training, and certainly no marathons (those are just dumb) just something semi-organized that lets me feel like a runner and race whenever I want at whatever distance without embarrassing myself.  You know, hobbyjoggerhood.

I will take some serious organizing this time--I need to get back to being an early morning runner, which I really haven't been with any consistency in almost a year.  Life is busy, things are going well.  I have a pretty big day job, my four daughters range from high school freshman to kindergarten and have active extra-curricular lives and of course there's The Beast, the 100 year old house, the aging parents, the real-life stuff we all have.  The hardest thing, oddly, is trying to always be the first one up in the morning and the last one to bed.  Somehow I feel like that's part of my job.  Those are things I know I will have to manage and it wont be easy.  But it beats the alternative of being a regular person, I'm finding.

In the mean time, my friend Jeff has been on a tear lately both with his running and his blogging.  It's great to see him having success with the program he's on, and best yet believing in the program and believing he can make a lot more progress.  That's all you can really ask out of this sport.  I remember what it's like to be in that place and it's inspiring to see. None of us but a handful of elites will ever do anything truly significant in this sport so it mostly comes down to how you want to see yourself, how you want to experience the world.  As Jeff said:

Running and racing is a way of leaving the ordinary behind. To speak romantically, we transcend the ordinary by plunging deeper into it, finding out what the limit is through surpassing it. Running and racing gives us a chance to talk about what we think matters: heart and effort, courage and fear, hope, suffering, and determination.

That and maybe running and racing is a way of appreciating a few laughs and a few beers with our friends a little more.