A Year Later: Enjoying the Moment and A Chicking Strategy

I was looking back on what I wrote last year at this time, around Memorial Day, when Dennis and I ran the Houska Houska. I was feeling pretty run down and stressed. I was bordering on overweight, fighting a hamstring strain that was about to get a lot worse, and miserable in my job.

A year later I was working, but my day was a bit different...it started out in my office looking at the sunshine and blooming delphinium out the window, with my dogs at my feet.

This month I find myself spending the majority of my time working on marketing strategies, writing, creating ad copy and promotional materials, and preparing for speaking engagements, photo shoots, and interviews. I get to do creative and artistic work, I get to think, and best of all, I can eat, drink, pee, and take breaks whenever I want to!

After spending the morning in the office, I had an appointment with a client.

Part of our appointment involved going for a hike. So this is what I was doing while working. Not bad.

I'm so thankful to be where I am now. Things aren't perfect and there's a lot of work to be done. It takes patience and a steel gut to start a business, and you have to be able to put certain fears, especially about money, on the back burner while you grow the business at the beginning. But I am happy and enjoying it and I am so glad to be where I am today, with unlimited possibilities. No longer do I inhabit a box with it's walls defined by other people's ambitions.

We're running the Houska Houska again on Monday. This year could be the year I chick Dennis in the race. I'm not counting on it, but if he's slowed down from last year, it could happen. I know that would be the ultimate motivation for him to get back in shape, to get him to start running with me again. He wants to but he hasn't made it a priority. I'm sort of hoping to beat him, for that reason alone.

In order to do it, I'll have to make a plan.

Sneaking up quietly and sprinting past him at the end is not an option, he has too much strength in his legs and especially on that last quarter mile in the dirt along the railroad tracks. He's a cross-country runner with natural speed and I have almost no chance of beating him on a stretch like that.

The only realistic strategy that will work is to use an early to mid-race chicking technique, where I get out there and use my endurance to my advantage by passing him in the first mile and watching carefully to make sure he doesn't gain on me.

I'll let you know what happens...