mmrobins

This is the year for this goal. It’s been a few years since I ran the half marathon, and since then I’ve been living all over the place, so haven’t made training for something like this a priority. I signed up to run the Portland Marathon on October 4th, so I’ve already sunk the $90 fee into this goal. I don’t have a training program yet, but I do have a training partner: Ubuntu. That’s my dog. She loves to run and never seems to get tired.

We ran 5 miles together today to break in some new shoes and see how she handled running. I don’t want all my training to be running though. I’ve been biking to work and back (16 or so miles round trip) the last few weeks now that the weather is getting warmer. I’ve also been playing dodgeball one night a week, but that’s not the most aerobic sport. I’m back into rock climbing at the gym a little bit, and Kim and I want to take a dance class. All that sounds pretty active, but I haven’t felt very active the last few dreary months. That has definitely begun to change.

I was doing this for a couple months pretty much every day, but then I moved, traveled for a few months, moved again, and changed jobs. Through all the changes I kept this goal as undone so that I could get reminders, but lack of a consistent place has made this hard to install as a daily habit. I’ve tried setting a time everyday to meditate, but I’m too frequently in the middle of something at the time I tried setting so gave up on that. Having a place and a general time really helps get me motivated enough to sit.

Now that I’m settled in one place again, I’m going to do 30 days and check them off on the calendar as I go. This is how I’ve gotten daily habits installed in the past. Once I get to the end of the 30 days continuing is usually very easy. Here goes!

For a few months I was doing really well with this goal. Almost every evening for more than two months month I was sitting down for 20 minutes to an hour to sit quietly and practice some form of meditation. It was a pleasant experience, but I didn’t feel like it was changing my life.

I’m not sure what happened, but suddenly I just stopped for the last couple months – and that’s when I noticed some things start to slip. I realized I wasn’t able to focus on things as deeply as I had been. I felt less in control of my moods. I was less organized and more scatterbrained. I felt stressed by things that I knew weren’t that big a deal.

I think the benefits of a daily meditation practice take longer to develop than they do to fade away once you stop, so they’re more noticeable when you quit. So now I’m looking forward to recommitting myself to this goal and enjoying all those benefits again.