Get a Goal & Keep It a Secret
Get Your Kleenex Ready: Meet Dick and Rick Hoyt
Happiness, As I Know It
Thirty-eight days people until 10.10.10. Not that I’m counting or anything, or obsessed with planning for everything that will come that weekend. I’ve tweeted it, but I honestly feel like a kid waiting for Christmas. I haven’t been this excited for a date in maybe a decade. I think I’m more excited for this than my college graduation day and I spent much more time on that.
Two years ago, I landed in Chicago from a plane from Bhutan. After quitting my former job, I spent three months on the beaches of Thailand and hiking through Bhutan. It was my way of experiencing Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
I can still remember the vanishing edge pool in Phuket I was sitting in when I opened Martin Seligman’s book Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment
which really tries to get at the heart of what will make us happy – appreciation, gratitude, friends- and what won’t make us happy – money (shock), material items. Seligman teaches at my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, and has established the positive psychology center at the school. In the book he writes about how even just telling the person that we’re grateful or appreciate them can be such a powerful exercise, and it’s selfish, because it makes us happier.
I’ve thought long and hard about what I will wear for the Chicago Marathon. I scoured running clothes Web sites and tried on most every shirt at the Nike Town in Chicago. I have to pick it out now because I’m having the back printed with this message “Thank You for Making Me Believe…” and then will list all of the names who I think have helped me to get where to where I am at now. It’s my surprise and thank you to them who have encouraged me almost daily since I started on this journey a year ago. And yes, it’s selfish, but it makes me really happy to do this.
When Is It Too Much?
My whole life right now basically revolves around the marathon. My social calendar is arranged around my long runs. My eating habits are dictated by marathon books. My laundry is overloaded with sports bras, leggings, and Smart Wool socks. And I’m just running one marathon so far.
Now meet Stefaan Engels, he’s planning on running a marathon every day this year and is half way done. He’s doing it in the name of promoting physical fitness, which wouldn’t be a bad thing. Granted he’s doing this to promote a cause and something bigger than himself. But, when does it get to be too much?
It’s hard to argue that you need to run a marathon for the physical benefits. You could get them by running a half marathon. I have no problems with the fact that 10.10.10 has taken over my life because I have no dog, no boyfriend, no anything that I’m really committed to. I do worry about those who have young children and spouses. Some in my running group argue that doing these endurance sports makes them a better father, mother, husband, or wife? Really? If you’re spending hours working out and obsessing about nutrition, how is a three year-old to understand why you’re not around?
Have you ever said to yourself this is too much? At the same time, I imagine it’s hard to walk away from marathons, etc., once you’ve become hooked.
The Houdini
I’m really amazed by those people who can just disappear out of someone’s life, a.k.a. pull “the houdini.” I happen to be the type of person who takes it very personally, because I care about my relationships a great deal. The first time this happened was with my best friend from high school. In college, she literally disappeared on me for no explainable reason. I heard she was talking to other friends of mine. I sent brownies on her birthday, cards at Christmas, and one day I e-mailed her and vowed this would be my last outreach to her after a year of just sending out messages that weren’t being returned. A few months later, when I was in Hong Kong, I got a message from her that she was dying to talk to me. I learned she had been diagnosed with bi-polar and I felt awful. Hence the disappearance. It was a lesson that sometimes it’s not about you but about the other person.
One of my ex’s goes in and out of my life. When he got engaged, he also stopped returning my e-mails. When that failed, he reached out.
Now I have a new case of the houdini. Two years ago, when I first moved to Chicago, I met Jay. Jay went out a couple on dates, but those were just friendly. Over the past few years, we became really good friends. We wrote each other long e-mails. We grabbed drink a couple times of month. We were good friends. Two months ago, I sensed I was getting the silent treatment from him. He had met a girl from e-Harmony and now he won’t talk to me. I have no understanding why we can’t if we were just friends? I’m not going to be friends with someone when it’s convenient for them.
Texted him last night if he wanted to get drinks since I was in his area. Before, he’d always come out. Now, just silence. When I got on the train, I texted him finally that I was heading home and that if he wanted this friendship to end, I wish he’d communicate that through simple English, rather than juvenile silence. I also mentioned that I thought I had been a good friend and this was rather assholish. I told him to take care. As you can imagine, he didn’t respond.
How do you get to the point where you decide you’re just going disappear from your friend’s life? Why not just say, I know have Miss E-Harmony and I don’t feel right in our friendship. I feel like I had more mature relationships in pre-school and this guy’s pushing forty-two, with one of the most god-awful dye jobs (think a dead squirrel was butterflied and landed on his head). Not sure what to do?
Runners, Affirm Yourself
Love Jessica’s attitude. Might help if we take her lead and apply it to our running.
365 Days Later, Same Spot?
Last night a group of women from my office went to see “Eat Pray Love.” I’ve read Elizabeth Gilbert’s tome about jetting around the world in search of finding her truth. Surprisingly, her struggle with marriage rings very true with me because as I have said several times, I don’t see how I am going to get to the altar.
The movie is slow. It’s long (you’re investing close to three hours with previews). It’s flawed. The poignant scene Gilbert starts her book off with where she is crying on her bathroom floor questioning her identity as a woman because she doesn’t want to have children is missing. Without that, you don’t understand the deep internal conflict Gilbert wrestles with and is the catalyst for her to take a year to head to Italy, India, and Bali.
As someone who took off three months to head to Thailand and Bhutan, I’ve realized these journies are not always fruitful. Don’t get me wrong, I have no regrets, but at times I think I was trying to force myself to feel something that wasn’t coming. I think I expected I’d come home a changed person. It didn’t happen. And so, I don’t want women to think that they have to go thousands of miles to find moments of truth. They can be found at home.
There were several moments to the movie that really shook me to my core. I’m scared shitless of finding deep love. Lately, the concept seems so transient to me and maybe, I should learn to accept that it’s OK if love doesn’t last. But, I’ve learned that I don’t love as naively as I did when I first fell in love with my college boyfriend Michael. I believed “in ever after,” and I believed that I had a “soul mate.” The hurt that I experienced from that relationship won’t let me love that blindly again. And I find the love is not as pure or as intense.
I know that Gilbert is now married to her sexy South American man she met on the island of Bali. It just seems so far-fetched that she’d go to this tiny island and meet the love of her life.
What I do praise Gilbert for is her drive to keep moving forward with her life and the desire to not be complacent. I once interviewed someone who said to me “fear complacency” and I do. I fear it so much that I won’t buy an apartment, because I want to be able to jump at any moment. I fear it that the moment I become good at a job, I start searching for another so I can go up the promotion ladder. I refuse for my life to be a ride of drifting down a river without my controlling some of the paddle. I never want there to be a year where I have to look back and say I was in the same spot 365 days ago.
I had dinner with Dereck afterward. For the first time, he told me was amazed at where I’ve come with my running. In a year, I’ve turned myself from a sedentary news junkie consumer to a passionate runner. I get overwhelmed thinking about the Chicago Marathon in 44 days. I’ve taken off seventy pounds. Dereck told me how happy he was for me and it just made me realize there is more pushing I need to do. I thought at dinner, I don’t want to be in the same spot, while it is a good spot, a year from now. Not sure where I want to head is the problem.
Where Do Sneakers Go to Die?
My new running shoes arrived last night and I gave them a go on the treadmill this morning. Love them. Yes, a sneaker specialist approved them for my foot, but they also look kind of cute too. Are they Louboutin cute? No, but they look good, as seen in exhibit A to the right.
We’re supposed to replace our running shoes every 300 to 400 miles. That seems like a big range and I tend to replace mine earlier rather than later. I tend to replace mine after big races. The above shoes will be the pair that I make the magic of the Chicago Marathon happen in forty-five days people. Don’t pass out.
I’ve collected quite a collection of running shoes. I can see keeping a pair around for odd jobs – painting, yard work, etc. (I’ll be honest, I don’t any of that because I live in a high-rise and I don’t own my place). So here are some suggestions.
1. EBay them. I know, it sounds horrifying. Who wants your used sneakers? Surprisingly, these suckers can go for $20 a pop. I have five pairs, which would add up to $100. A new pair of sneakers essentially.
2. Recyle them. Nike has a recycling program where it’s turning shoes into things with rubbers surfaces – playgrounds, basketball courts, etc.
3. Donate them. Soles4Souls sends sneakers to third-world countries such as Haiti, Nepal, and Tibet. They distribute seven pairs of sneakers every second. Quite an impressive feat. To learn more about sending your shoes, click here.
There are some that don’t want to get rid of their running shoes. Here’s a story of Nicole Hunt in the New York Times who says she’s bonded with all thirty pairs of running shoes. Some even still have the mud on them from years ago. She says her shoes provide her with memories from races. I’m keeping the running bibs for the memories, but I can understand how one gets attached to the shoes.
What do you do with your old shoes?
Playlist Remix
If you're a runner, you have to have this.
I’m addicted to music. Always have been, probably always will be. My iPod is on me at least a couple of hours a day and NOBODY, I mean NOBODY can beat me at “Name That Tune.” Played piano for sixteen years so I have the Classical down, have recently developed an appreciate for Country, and so on. My one area that’s gray is heavy, heavy metal. Not sure that Marilyn Mason is really music and not just a way to sacrifice your hearing.
A good song, makes me run faster. A crap song, and I’m contemplating whether I want to continue. Let’s face it after fifty listenings of Van Halen’s Right Now it’s not as motivating for me as it was back in February. So I’ve enlisted your help and thank you for sharing your running playlists. Also Runner’s World also has some great lists here. So the lists in no particular order.
My Ultimate Playlist
1. The Killers – All These Things that I’ve Done
2. Billy Joel – I Go to Extremes
3. Whitney Houston – Step By Step
4. Janet Jackson – If
5. Kings of Leon – Sex on Fire
6. Melissa Ethridge – I Run for Life
7. Black Eyed Peas – Meet Me Halfway
8. Celine Dion – I’m Alive (Yes, I know this is very cheesy, but it motivates)
9. Nelly Furtado – Do It
10. Jon McLaughlin – Beating My Heart
11. Deep Dish – Dreams
12. Heart – Never
13. Christina Aguilera – Fighter
14. Bruce Springsteen – Born to Run
15. Coldplay – Lovers in Japan
16. Lady Gaga – Bad Romance
17. Annie Lennox – Little Bird
18. U2 – I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For (Live version from Paris)
19. Rihanna – Disturbia
20. Keith Urban – Somebody Like You
21. Chris Brown – Forever
22. Amber – This is Your Night
23. Kanye West – Touch the Skey
24. Eminem – Lose Yourself
25. Jewel – Standing Still
Elisabelth’s List
Rain King – Counting Crows
Beautiful Day – U2
Big Pimpin – Jay Z, Linkin Park
Bingo – MIA
Blame It on the Girls – Mika
Boom Boom Pow – Black Eyed Peas
Bounce - Timbaland
Break Stuff – Limp Bizkit
Boy Moves to a New Town – FM Static
Breakeven – The Script
Bucky Done Gun – MIA
Bulletproof – La Roux
Change – Candlebox
Cheer It On – Tokyo Police Club
Change Your Mind – The Killers
Death to Los Campesinos – Jay Z, Linkin Park
Dog Days Are Over – Florence + The Machine
Down in Love – Freedy Johnston
Dynamite – Taio Cruz
The Electric Version – The New Pornographers
Evacuate the Dancefloor – Cascada
Fences – Phoenix
Give It to Me – Timbaland
Giving Up the Gun – Vampire Weekend
Good – Better Than Ezra
Hombre – MIA
Horchata – Vampire Weekend
Imma Be – Black Eyed Peas
In a Big Country
In The End – Linkin Park
Izzo – Jay Z
Just Dance – Lady Gaga
Kiss Me Deadly – Lita Ford
Kate – Ben Folds
Little Things – Bush
Live Like We’re Dying – Kris Allen
The Look of Love – ABC
Love and Memories – OAR
The Lucky One – Freedy Johnston
Love of the Loveless – Eels
M79 – Vampire Weekend
Mandinka – Sinead O’Connor
Maybe – Ingrid Michaelson
Modern Guilt – Beck
Molly – Sponge
Motor Candy – The Sugarcubes
My First Kiss
My Moon My Man – Feist
Nearly Lost You – Screaming Trees
Nookie – Limp Bizkit
Nothin On You – Bruno Mars
Numb/Encore – Jay Z
One and Only – Timbaland
Over My Head – The Fray
Party in the USA – Miley Cyrus
Mr. Tough – Yo La Tengo
Plowed – Sponge
Points of Authority – Jay Z
Ray of Light – Madonna
Release – Timbaland
Ridin’ Solo – Jason Derulo
Rock that Body
Rollin – Limp Bizkit
Seether – Veruca Salt
Set Yourself on Fire – Stars
Single Ladies – Beyonce
Shove It – Santigold
Solsbury Hill – Peter Gabriel
Suspicious Minds – Dwight Yoakum
Telephone – Lady Gaga
These are the Days – 10,000 Maniacs
Throw It On Me – Timbaland
Tik Tok – Kesha
Tribulations – LCD Soundsystems
Use It – New Pornographers
Winner – Justin Timberlake
Yeah – Lil John
You – Candlebox
You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid – The Offspring
Your Love is My Drug – Kesha
32 Flavors – Ani DeFranco
1901 – Phoenix
Secret Meeting – The National
Say Aah – Trey Songz
Take Me Anywhere – Tegan and Sara
Pride – U2
Desire – U2
Wonder – Natalie Merchant
Brady’s List
Danger Zone (Album Version) Various Artists
Naturally Selena Gomez & The Scene
Not Afraid Eminem
Airplanes (feat. Hayley Williams of Paramore) B.o.B
Love the Way You Lie (feat. Rihanna) Eminem
Billionaire (feat. Bruno Mars) Travie McCoy
‘Till I Collapse Eminem & Nate Dogg
Lovers In Japan / Reign Of Love Coldplay
Turnin Me On Keri Hilson & Lil Wayne
In My Head Jason Derülo
Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It) Beyoncé
Poker Face Lady GaGa
Apologize OneRepublic & Timbaland
OMG (feat. will.i.am) Usher
Nothin’ On You (feat. Bruno Mars) B.o.B
Spotlight (feat. Usher) Gucci Mane
Carry Out (feat. Justin Timberlake) Timbaland
Everybody In Love JLS
All the Right Moves OneRepublic
With You Chris Brown
If I Were a Boy Beyoncé
Bad Romance Lady GaGa
Use Somebody Kings of Leon
Born To Run Bruce Springsteen
Under Pressure David Bowie & Queen
Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart Alicia Keys
Better In Time Leona Lewis
Pretty Woman Roy Orbison
Run This Town (feat. Rihanna & Kanye West) Jay-Z
Sweet Disposition The Temper Trap
Beast of Burden The Rolling Stones
Paparazzi Lady GaGa
Empire State of Mind (feat. Alicia Keys) Jay-Z
TiK ToK Ke$ha
Sex On Fire Kings of Leon
Rock & Roll Eric Hutchinson
Sweet Dreams Beyoncé
Shattered (Turn the Car Around) O.A.R.
I Can’t Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch) Four Tops
I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho) [More English Extended Mix] Pitbull
Never Forget You Noisettes
Hush Hush; Hush Hush The Pussycat Dolls
Let the Drummer Kick Citizen Cope
Son’s Gonna Rise Citizen Cope & Santana
Miss Independent Ne-Yo
Whatever It Is Zac Brown Band
Any Other Day (feat. Norah Jones) Wyclef Jean
I Will Be Leona Lewis
Meet Me Halfway Black Eyed Peas
Apologize (as made famous by Timbaland and One Republic) (Instrumental Beats) Superstar Beat Makers
Jay’s List
Beastie Boys
Hello Nasty
In Sounds from Way Out
Licensed to Ill
Paul’s Boutique
The Police
Message in a Box (literally everything they ever recorded)
The Jacksons
Destiny
Mary’s List
Ready to Run by the Dixie Chicks
Step by Step by Whitney Houston
Its All Your Fault by P!nk
One Girl Revolution by SuperChick
Jump by Madonna
You Oughta to Know by Alanis Morrisette
Hit Me With Your Best Shot by Pat Benatar
U & Ur Hand by P!nk
Survivor by Destiny’s Child
Goodbye to You by Scandal
It’s Not Right, But It’s Okay by Whitney Houston
Fighter by Christina Aguilera
Unbreakable by Fireflight
Ray of Light by Madonna
April’s List
Not Afraid – Eminem
Rebel Yell – Billy Idol
B.O.B. – Outkast
Gold Guns Girls – Metric
#1 – Nelly
Panic Switch – Silversun Pickups
California Gurls – Katy Perry
Tik Tok – Ke$ha
It’s Your Life – Francesca Battistelli
I Run for Life – Melissa Etheridge
Galvanize – Chemical Brothers
Boom Boom Pow – Black Eyed Peas
1901 – Phoenix
Me Against the Music (feat. Madonna) – Britney Spears
Nine in the Afternoon – Panic! At the Disco
Whataya Want from Me – Adam Lambert
Til I Collapse – Eminem
Get Low – Lil Jon & The Ease Side Boyz & Ying Yang Twins
Lose Yourself – Eminem
Shadowplay – The Killers
Edge of Seventeen – Stevie Nicks
Sun Red Sky Blue – Kenna
Strong Enough – Kina Grannis
John’s List
Indestructible by Disturbed
Audience of One by Rise Against
Hard to See by Five Finger Death Punch
Scream, Aim, Fire by Bullet for My Valentine
Radio Clash by the Clash
Blue Monday by Orgy
Paradise City by Guns n Roses
Crawling by Linkin Park
American Idiot by Green Day
Lose Yourself by Eminem
Play by J Lo
Wait and Bleed by Slipknot
Holly’s List
All These Things That I’ve Done, The Killers
American Girl, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Ants Marching, Dave Matthews Band
Are You Gonna Be My Girl, Jet
Army, Ben Folds Five
Audience, Cold War Kids
Baba O’Riley, The Who
Beautiful Day, U2
Blister In The Sun, Violent Femmes
Bring Me to Life, Evanescence
Bulletproof, La Roux
Bust a Move, Young MC
Clocks, Coldplay
Devil Inside, INXS
Empire State of Mind, Jay Z with Alicia Keys
Even Flow, Pearl Jam
Fat-Bottomed Girls, Queen
Float On, Modest Mouse
Forever, Chris Brown
Freedom! 90, George Michael
Get Low, Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz & Ying Yang Twins
Golddigger, Kanye
Hella Good, No Doubt
Henry Nearly Killed Me (It’s A Shame), Ray LaMontagne
Here I go Again, Whitesnake
I Gotta Feeling, Black Eyed Peas
I Melt With You, Modern English
Laid, James
Love Lockdown, Kanye West
Need You Tonight, INXS
New Sensation, INXS
New Shoes, Paolo Nutini
Numb encore, Jay Z and Linkin Park
One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces, Ben Folds Five
One Tree Hill, U2
Renegade, Styx
Rhythm Nation, Janet Jackson
The Rockafeller Skank, Fatboy Slim
Runnin’ Down A Dream, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
The Safety Dance, Men Without Hats
Shipping up to Boston, Dropkick Murphys
Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours, Stevie Wonder
Song for the Dumped, Ben Folds Five
Spicy McHaggis Jig, Dropkick Murphys
Sunday Bloody Sunday, U2
Supernatural Superserious, R.E.M.
Superstition, Stevie Wonder
Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This), Eurythmics
That Was a Crazy Game of Poker, O.A.R.
Touch the Sky, Kanye West
Here I Come, Fergie
Uprising, Muse
Uptight, (Everything’s Alright) Stevie Wonder
Use Somebody, Kings of Leon
Viva La Vida, Coldplay
Walk This Way, Run DMC/Aerosmith
What You Need, INXS
When Doves Cry, Prince
Where the Streets Have No Name, U2
You Make My Dreams, Hall & Oates
