Monday’s Metaphor: Train for Your Goals

Eva finished her first full marathon at Disney yesterday!

It’s no secret that I’m obsessed with metaphors. So how could I not be inspired by my dear Chick’s 26-mile, 5+ hour accomplishment? It’s the perfect start to what I plan to make a regular Monday post, a brief observation of a living metaphor around me that week.

So fellow writers, dancers, quilters, mothers and other humans, take note! We can learn a lot from those who call themselves runners.

The thing is, Eva only claimed this new title a couple of years ago. She was a true beginner. With no credentials. No experience. No promise of success. But she did have a goal: to complete her first triathlon.

In this regard, I think runners and athletes have a distinct advantage over writers. They have clear deadlines. If they sign up for a race, they have to train for it, consistently and in ever-larger increments throughout the time leading up to an impending fixed event.

Chick Peggy recently lured me into a literary equivalent. She and I both accepted the 12 x 12 in 2012 writing challenge, committing along with 250 other aspiring and experienced authors alike to draft one new young children’s picture book each month this year.

Like the other runners encouraging each other along Eva’s marathon route weaving through the various Walt Disney World theme parks yesterday, I’m looking forward to the support and positive peer pressure of other children’s authors. There is strength in the support of those who share your goals. That is, after all, the purpose for this blog. And while we all want to do our best, at the end of the race, we’re really only competing against ourselves.

Once again, Eva crossed another finish line she set for herself. Here’s hoping we writers can live out the metaphor this year with our own goals, not sprinting, but training, encouraging, supporting, pacing and enduring through the process of preparing for and completing our own marathon.

Unclear Path

I have to admit that I love the feeling of not knowing where something is going to take me.

It’s like that feeling on a new roller coaster that you have never ridden, standing in line and your heart is beating out of your chest and your palm is sweating with excitement of not knowing what to expect.  You just know that you are going to love it.   After the ride you feel exilerated and happy and you want that feeling again.  So, you get back on and even though you loved it, it is not that same feeling you had the first time before getting on.

That’s how I felt when I did my first Sprint Triathlon.

I had never run in my life.  I had been aerobic instructor in my early college years and was in a swimming team during High School.  But running and sweating was not my idea of fun.  One day, one of my employee said that he was going to do the 5K, and something inside me clicked, kinda like what our first guest chick said regarding her experience about photography https://4chicks.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/our-first-guest-chick/.  It just clicked.  Well that is how I felt.   So instead of trying to train for a 5K, I decided to up the ante and do a sprint triathlon.  I download a free training program and started training.  At first the running for me was hard, remember I had never really ran.  I just started walking 5 minutes and running for 1 minute till almost at the end of my training I was able to run the whole 3.1 miles.

When the day came for the Triathlon I had that amazing feeling like before getting on a roller coaster.  I was excited and scared at the same time.  I could not stop going t0 the bathroom because my stomach was not cooperating with me.   I remember telling myself “what am I thinking, am I crazy”?   But I will never forget what the organizer of the event said as we all stood knee high in the lake before the swim.  “For all the 1st timers, I know that you are scared but I can garantee you, that the fear will leave once you start swimming”.  I remember telling myself “year right”.  And than I heard the horn.  There was no turning back now.  At first I was hyper ventilating and thinking “I need to stay calm and breath just swim like you have been practicing and enjoy the ride”.  Ohhh how amazing it felt when I was able to let go of the fear and just enjoy it.  After the swim I felt energized and got on my bike as happy as I can be.  Got back to my transition area and dropped the bike off and ran.  And I will never forget coming around the bend and hearing people scream with excitement and finding myself getting emotional as I ran to the finish line. I DID IT!  What a Day!

Now let me tell you that I have done a few 5k’s and a half marathon after that first Sprint Triathlon.  But I have never been able to recapture that feeling from that day.  And I realize that it was that feeling of that unclear path not knowing where something is going to take me.  Will I fail? Will I succeed?  and than to find out that you succeeded was an amazing feeling.

So, I wonder is it fear or the final journey of my Documentary that hold me back from finishing it.  Maybe a little of both.   But this I know, that you need faith as you venture through the unclear path.  Going through the unclear path is to take risk, make mistakes and sometimes fail.

Their are 3 things you need  to know as you go though your creative journey is have an Illusion, Desire, and Courage”.   Here I am in my 40’s trying something that I have never experienced in my life. Was I being delusional?  Was I crazy? Was I going through a midlife crises?  But I knew that I had the desire to prove something to myself.  And had the courage not to just speak of it, or want it, but to actually do it.

So, I leave you with this poem from the Apple campaign.

Here’s to the Crazy Ones!

The misfits.

The rebels.

The troublemakers.

The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.

Because they change things.

The invent.  They imagine.  They heal.
They explore.  They create.  They inspire.
They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas & see a work of art?
Or, sit in silence & hear a song that’s never been written?
Or, gaze at a red planet & see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

“Because the people who are crazy enough to think they
can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Poem By: Apple Computers, Inc.©

A Story To Tell

Saturday night I tweeted that Running equals good mood and creativity.  I did not go for a run the next morning like I was thinking I was going to do.  I went running at noon time, the hottest time that I could go.  Don’t ask.  So at mile 3.1, I started thinking about creativity hoping to take my mind off how tired and hot I was feeling.

I came to the conclusion at mile 4.5, that I’m not a writer like my other 3 Chicks are.  I’m not even a very good videographer, or editor, or runner.  Or even a very good writer.  But what I do have is a story.

Julia Cameron said that you need to take baby steps, to just start–even if it’s me sitting in front of the computer for 10 minutes a day.  Eventually I will become a good videographer, editor, and an OK writer.

So, this is what I can guarantee: that I will forget to clean my video lenses, my video will be shaky, that I will write there instead of their. That I will still struggle to breathe even if I have been running for over 2 years.  But, I will have a story to tell.