Goals

So, now that I've (somewhat) settled into a (somewhat) regular exercise routine, I do want to share some of my short and long term goals.







Short Term Goals:

• Be under 300 pounds by August 21, 2009 (which comes to a little over 2 pounds a week for 18 weeks)
• Stop drinking carbonated drinks
• Write at least one post a week on this blog for accountability
• Hike to the top of Timpanogos Mountain before the end of this Summer

Long Term Goals:

• Get below 200 pounds
• Run a full marathon
• Eat a rice cake (This one may take a while...)

This is just a short list of what I hope to accomplish. Most of them are pretty self explanatory, but the one that I want to talk about specifically is running a full marathon.

Usually, telling someone that you'd like to run in a marathon got you a response like: "Why on earth would you want to do something like that? Why would you subject your body to such an horrifying amount of pain? 26.2 miles just to prove that your healthy? I'm going to go watch Oprah." I know because I used to say that to people. Except for the Oprah part. I swear. (He's lying to you right now. -Brain) Now that I'm at a point in my life where I've set this goal, I realized that the answer is a bit more complex than "proving that I'm healthy."

Like I had mentioned in my previous posts, I've always been a fairly large guy. To me, running a marathon not only seemed to be the pinnacle of athleticism, but it also represented something that, in my mind, was completely unachievable. Something like that was so far out of my reach that I would never be physically able to do it. I had impressed this point so much into my brain (Thanks a lot. -Brain) that when I initially made my list of goals, I refused to put it down because it was so ridiculous. I might as well have put "perform open heart surgery while bowling a 300" on my list. As weird as it sounds, I had to do a lot of convincing to myself before I would even consider it. But as I started to write this post, it occurred to me that the whole point of goals is to strive toward a place that you are currently not at. This isn't about being fit enough to be able to run a marathon, it's about setting a nearly impossible goal and putting everything I am into achieving it. So, while it may take years, I will accomplish this goal. And I expect you all to hold me to it. And just so we're clear, I'm talking about the marathon, not the rice cake.