Amanda gets all thinky

Now that it has been almost two weeks since the race (I am no longer sore and even managed to run some pain-free agility yesterday!), I feel like I have finally had some time for everything to sink in. I went through over five months of training, ran in single-digit temperatures, sent out about 100 fundraising letters and e-mails, organized my own event in February, endured several minor injuries, ran two training races, learned quite a bit about Pilates and its oddly-named exercises and equipment, and ultimately succeeded spectacularly on both the racing and fundraising fronts.

So what did I learn from all this?

First and foremost, although you can't do EVERYTHING, if it is important enough to you, you can do (pretty much) ANYTHING. I think a lot of us suffer from overcommitment syndrome: Activity A sounds good, so we do that, and then someone wants us to get involved in Activity B, so we try that, and then Activities C, D, and E just kind of sneak their way in...sound familiar? And we're rushing from one thing to the next and not really giving any of them our full attention or concentration. But if something comes along that really matters, maybe you should give up Activities C, D, and E for a while and really focus on Activity A. You might surprise yourself with what you can do if you make one thing your absolute priority.

Second, if you push yourself to do something great, you may inspire others to be great too. People do actually watch what you're doing, and if you keep plugging away at something even when it would be much easier to make excuses and give up, you may inspire others to embark on great adventures of their own. Never discount the ripple effect. Needless to say, I did NOT run a half-marathon so I could lecture other people about fitness, but two people started exercise programs because they read the blog and/or my Facebook updates about running and decided they wanted to try it too. And my mom, having been fitted with nice running shoes at the expo, would like to work up to walking a 5K with me. Is that not the coolest thing ever?? I can't wait for the day I can walk side by side with her and finish a 5K together.

Third, it may be a hoary old cliché, but it's still true: No man is an island. Anything truly grand requires other people to support you and help you, and even in this digital age, you're a fool if you think you're self-sufficient. It just ain't so. Humans are social animals, and it is important to be connected to others, not to mention essential for your mental health and sanity. And if you ask for help nicely and with good intentions, people will fall all over themselves to give it to you. I got a lot of help from a lot of people to make it through my training and fundraising, and it still flattens me just thinking about it: all the people who made donations on my site, who sent checks in the mail, who signed up for my agility fun run, who sent encouraging messages on Facebook, and of course, my Team in Training teammates and coaches who ran with me and taste-tested gels with me and talked gear with me...there are hundreds of people who had a hand in this, and none of them had a gun to their head (as far as I know, anyway!). I quit sending Christmas cards a long time ago because I thought I should hand-write a letter for each person, but you know what? I love reading other people's Christmas letters. I'm not offended that they didn't hand-write a letter just for me. (Seriously, what kind of stupid perfectionistic thinking is that?) So this year, I am going to take a small step to keeping those connections alive and send out a Christmas letter of my own. Fair warning: expect several inches of column space to be devoted to my Team in Training experience. :-)

Fourth, there is a genuine, bone-deep, visceral pleasure in running a long distance under your own power--in looking down at your legs pumping steadily away at Mile 10 and thinking, "I came all this way with my heart and my lungs and my legs! This distance that I would normally drive in a car--I ran here!!" Especially if you were not terribly athletic as a child (I played rec-league soccer for a while but abandoned it once I hit high school), it is an incredibly empowering and amazing feeling to make your body, this miraculous machine, show you what it can do. You get so much pride and satisfaction from a good run. There are many people who cannot run because of injury, illness, or congenital issues, so it is a blessing and a privilege to be able to lace up your trainers and feel the wind in your hair.

And finally, we've all heard it a thousand times from our parents, teachers, bosses, whoever: "If you want to accomplish something big, you have to break it down into small, manageable steps and have a schedule. Then, you just focus on each day of the schedule and take it one day at a time." Seriously, if I had a nickel for every time I've heard that, I could quit my day job and write fantasy novels or something. We all know it's true, but how often do we actually manage to follow that advice?

Like no other experience in my life, going from "I've never run more than 4.5 miles before!" to "I just ran a 2:19 half-marathon!" with Team in Training made this concrete and tangible for me. I didn't have to worry about running 13.1 miles. All I had to do was look at the schedule and see how far I needed to run TODAY, and do it. Lather, rinse, repeat. And even during the race itself, I never thought, "Oh my God, how am I going to run 13.1 miles?? That's SOOOO far! I only ran 12 miles in training! Oh NOES!" I thought, "Okay, let's get up this hill and around the next corner...ooh, what a pretty view! ...Look, there's the next mile marker already! The next water stop isn't far now!" This is a powerful lesson that I hope to apply to many other areas of my life. Too often, we think about doing something--realizing a dream, going back to school, renovating the house--and get overwhelmed before we even begin. We defeat ourselves before we even get started because the task just seems too big. Like running, life is all about breaking big things into manageable pieces and working steadily through them.

I could go on, but I'd say those are probably my top five lessons learned. Pretty heady stuff.