I’m calling this year The Marathon Year. Why? Because I’m planning on running a marathon in November! Pretty exciting, huh? Also, I feel like the word “Marathon” represents something that is huge, a lot of work, incredibly rewarding, and an amazing accomplishment to look back on. That’s what I want this year to be.
I’ve been running for a while, but a marathon feels way out of my league. Probably because it is way out of my league. However I know if I start incrementally training now I will be able to attain later what seems impossible at the moment. It will take time, dedication and consistency, but eventually November will come and I will run the whole stinkin’ thing.
On the topic of impossible things I could try this year, I thought of something else I really want to do that seems completely out of reach: doing handstands.
I dropped out of kiddie gymnastics when we moved to cartwheels. Basically my legs do not go over my torso. My body is not built in a way where this is an easy thing to achieve. I have slim shoulders and a long torso which then run into long legs that are… well let’s just say that when the nurses at the orthopedic surgery center compliment you on how big your legs are, you know you’re reaching a pretty high percentile of bulk. I love the amazing things my naturally strong legs can do, but magically hovering in the air is not one of them.
New Year’s Day I was wishing I could do handstands, so I did a Google search and found this nifty blogpost. I decided to take the 28-day handstand challenge, and I’m having a lot of fun with it. I can already see improvement, it reminds me to exercise, and it’s even incentive to eat more healthily and trim off any excess weight I’m carrying. One of the best parts is knowing that in a few months I should be able to do something I gave up on when I was five years old: a freestanding handstand.
These two goals are incredibly tangible reminders that anything of worth happens one day at a time. I have a habit of being both lazy and impatient, so I like instant results, but instant usually means relatively worthless. Some wonderful things happen in a moment, but I have yet to find something really important and enduring in life that doesn’t require some degree of process.
What’s fun about making these goals for 2015 is I know God has plans for this year too. I’m not in on all of them right now, but since He made me a crazy person who loves to try impossible things like handstands and marathons, I know He has some impossible things for us to achieve together this year too. Because as amazing as it will be when I achieve these two athletic goals that seem impossible to me right now, there are a lot of more important things that look impossible right now too. Things that have less to do with muscle fibers and blood vessels and more to do with humility, patience, trust, perseverance and that type of stuff.
I know at the end of the year when I look at all of the impossible things that have happened it will have very little to do with my abilities and everything to do with God. All I’m going to do it show up everyday and submit to the process.
This week during handstand practice I came down too fast and smashed both of my knees onto the floor. They are both bruised and sore now. I’m going to try to avoid doing that again. I feel like I probably don’t have to describe all of the larger implications of that illustration.
I could quit because of a couple of bruises. Or I can keep practicing, but learn from my mistakes. I’m going to mess up a lot this year, and my prideful perfectionistic insecure self doesn’t like that, but I’m trying to remind myself it’s ok. God’s not giving up, and if I’ll get back up after I fall and keep going with Him He has some impossible things for us to do together this year.
This is a year of incredible things. Marathon Year.