#50in50

I love the ways that ideas form, taking root in the darkness of my mind and germinating like these tentative fronds I see popping up in the soil on this second day of spring. I am like those hesitant flowers. Long winters of my life have passed, while I had myself convinced that I had to be snowed in. Now the great thaw has come and I see that the re-birth of spring can be a moment of eternity for me.

There is a storm brewing in my heart. Somewhere between an offhanded conversation with a friend and a resurrection of my running and a belief in the power of the moments of my life, a big dream has been born: 50 half-marathons in 50 states. The distance is doable, the challenge is great, and I am buoyed by the idea that I am just south of crazy. A laudable goal, and the devil is certainly in the details. The timeline stretches five years, maybe longer if needed, and all will be done long before my fiftieth birthday.

I laugh that this is a dream with my name on it at all. Somehow it is running that makes me feel most alive. It is what separates me from my former self and creates a sense of power and strength. I remember my first run like it was yesterday. Laced up my Target sneakers as a storm was brewing..…in my heart and in the sky. Four years have passed and I am still in awe of myself as a runner.

On May 9, 2010 I wrote: “I run as though my life depended on it. And as the storm pounds closer I can see that it does. The sky rips open top to bottom, like pale flesh covering thoracic cavity, and every bump in the road is illuminated. For an instant. Then the sky plunges to black and my feet struggle for balance.

I keep running. The wind chases me now. I turn the corner and head for home. I’m not in it for the distance tonight. It is too new and too raw. But now I see. There is more to me than I already know. Some strange strength is gathering like the roiling clouds blowing in from the west.”

That strength  is certainly brewing. The goal is lofty, my mind is in the game (even if a mere nine days out from state one’s race in Michigan, I am icing my leg and gimping down the hallway.) Dreams have a way of working out. And if my dream is to “suck the marrow from life” as my favorite Thoreau has said, then I will certainly make it.  He said, “You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment.” My finger is on the GO button of this dream, and I am ready to ride some waves.