sneeb

The title of my NaNoWriMo manuascript. Finished it in 28 days. It was definitely not a linear flow, I tended to fall behind by 4,000 – 6,000 words during the week, and catch up during the weekend. Toward the end the writing began to flow out of me - I couldn’t stop it. By that time I had a story to tell. It was a mystical, magical experience, getting to know these characters who wandered into my life and blossomed as I breathed life into them through the pages. It was an exciting experience - a grind, yes—but something I am glad to say I have done.

The three words that are supposed to make it all worth it. The pain is temporary, they say, but the glory lasts forever. I ran my first marathon in Boston, and the actual race was MUCH harder than most of the training runs, surprisingly enough. They say the adrenaline keeps you going during the actual race, but my knees and quads were aching from about mile 12 onward.

I had trained for about six months, the last four of them seriously, following Hal Higdon’s Novice Marathon Training Guide (it’s online, you can Google it). I lost about 20 pounds training for the marathon. My longest training run was 24 miles, following the advice of some co-workers of mine, who said to make the last training run as long as you can before the actual race. In retrospect this was probably more of a mental accomplishment, a way of proving to yourself that you really can go the distance. Although it gave me a lot of confidence that I would be able to finish, I think even three weeks later on Marathon Day I was still recovering from the training run. So I had a difficult time with the actual race. But, I still finished! Woo-hoo!

This was one of the most personally fulfilling, eye-opening experiences I have ever had. The feeling of accomplishment you get when you pack your own parachute, jump out of an airplane going 100 knots into the clear blue sky, pull your own pilot chute, and steer yourself to a safe landing, is unbelievably empowering. You look up at the sky and shake your head in wonderment, I did that??? Then you think, if I can do this, there are few things I cannot do. Things that used to seem hard now seem easy by comparison. I got my license and did my 200 jumps leading to a D-License, or Master license, at the Blue Sky Ranch in Gardiner, NY. They were very professional and knowledgeable, and I got really good training from them. I even jumped in Hawaii, where you can see the whole northern tip of O’ahu when you jump. It’s incredibly beautiful! Skydiving changed my life for the better!