Life is NOT a Dress Rehearsal

This weekend I celebrated my 36th birthday. That's right, I am NOT afraid to admit that I am now closer to 40 than to 30. I am also not afraid to admit that I have learned a LOT about myself, life, happiness, and love in the last few years. Probably all of those pieces of information might have served me well during my first 30ish years of life. But I am so happy with where I am in my life and who I am, that I would not give up any of the experiences I have had....they helped make me who I am :) As a part of my birthday, I got a LOT of email from various organizations I belong to wishing me happy birthday. Most of these are nice gestures but have little or no substance (except for that great Red Box coupon) with one very big exception.

A few months back I started using SparkPeople to help me track my mileage and fitness in general in hopes of dropping some pounds and getting in better shape. The email they sent to me for my birthday was inspiring and possibly habit changing. The message they sent was a reminder of the old saying that "life is not a dress rehearsal". But it begged the question, they why do we treat it like it is? Why do we put business ahead of balance or working ahead of wellness? This message asked me to think about my life in this exact moment and shuffling my priorities this year to put health and happiness ahead of other goals that might not be as important. That really spoke to me. Late March and April were NOT good training months for me. My mileage suffered. I have been down on myself for that suffrage and losing sight of the bigger goal of the half marathon on June 2nd. The only things about running that have been positive lately are the outdoor runs I am able to do now that it is warmer and the fact that my pace time continues to get smaller even in spite of the lack of total miles. I needed a reminder like this message to give me a little push. So that message, and the gift of my new Garmin Forerunner watch (a special shout out to my amazing friend to thank you for the incredible birthday present!!!), have flipped my motivation switch. Last night I got in a great 7 mile run at a pace I am proud of (9:53) and felt fantastic! I am looking forward to the next 5 weeks of training and I head into my next half marathon. Looking to reduce my PR in the half by another 5-10 min and I now feel an increase in motivation to do it. So bring on tomorrow and my next training run! My dress rehearsal is officially over, its time for the real deal. Get busy living! :)

XOXO - Jenn