At some point during Christmastime 2020, I was compelled to set a lofty goal for the new year. The compulsion cannot be pinned to a specific source or event of inspiration, but rather a growing tired of sipping on bourbon & ginger ales while watching holiday movies. ‘Elf,’ the 2003 (objective) masterpiece starring Will Ferrell and James Caan, was being projected in my living room while a thought, unrelated to the movie, crossed my mind: do a lot of running in 2021. Get moving.
While mentally crunching the numbers, I told myself that I could run 1,000 miles throughout the course of the year. My body was fairly acclimated for this ambition — or so I thought — for it was accustomed to regular jogging. The math is fair: running approximately 2.74 miles every day for a year would amount to 1,000 miles by year’s end. Still, I thought this goal was a bit too ballsy — so I slashed the goal in half. 500 miles throughout 2021. Walking doesn’t count, nor does the tennis. (Either I’m a masochist or simply too much of a sucker for challenges.) Simple enough, right? Easier on paper, certainly. Life happens. Family comes before anything else. Work is a priority.
2021 feels like the longest short year that ever happened. It zipped by and lagged…at the same time. Before I knew it, October was in view. And then October flew by. (I still have the theme from John Carpenter’s…
