Every so often I get some wild hair up my backside to do something. Sometimes I go through with it, and sometimes I don't. When I do go through with it I get all gung-ho crazy and obsessed. A couple examples...
Several years ago I had been watching my diet and practicing yoga semi-regularly - I tried to make a class about once a week. By doing these two things, I started losing weight so I then started going to yoga more frequently, 2-3 times per week, and pilates occaisionally, maybe once every other week. Naturally, when I became more active I started to lose even more weight. Yeah, I started to get a little obsessed. I was considering becoming a yoga instructor at the urging of the owner of the studio I was going to, I was looking into yoga retreats as vacation options, half of my wardrobe was various yoga pants and tank tops.
I didn't limit my obsession with physical activity to just yoga though. Somewhere in the middle of all of this I read about the American Diabetes Association Tour de Cure which is either a 25, 50 or 100 mile bike ride to raise funding for diabetes research. I was training for the 50 mile ride. In addition to yoga and pilates, I would go on bike rides throughout the week. I would take my bike to work on the back of my car, and on my way home I would stop off at the American River Bike trail and ride for about 5 miles before returning home. On weekends I would go on 15 mile rides around my town. In the evenings, or when weather would not allow biking, I would lift handweights. I walked around my house, and the grocery store or Target, with ankle weights. I was dead serious about my training.
About a month before the ride I got bronchitis. While the antibiotics did clear out the bronchitis, I still didn't feel like my usual self and my workouts were nowhere near as easy as they had been in the previous months. But, I kept pushing through it figuring that I just had to build myself back up to the level that I was at before I got sick. It never got any easier and then I started to develop this really weird stabbing pain in my ribcage whenever I did try to work out. Then that stabbing pain was there whenever I took a breath. I went back to the doctors and was diagnosed with pleurisy just a week before the Tour de Cure. I was out of the ride. I knew that with the pain I was in there was no possible way I would be able to come anywhere near doing a 50 mile bike ride.
At that point I was so disappointed that I stopped riding my bike, stopped going to yoga and pilates and slowly gained back all of the weight I had lost, plus an additional 40lbs.
Another time I got all gung ho about something was just a little over two years ago. for New Years Eve 2005. I was at home, sick, watching Sex and the City DVDs when I rang in 2006. Lying there, I decided that my resolution that year would be to go somewhere that required a passport. I briefly forgot about my resolution for a couple of months, then remembered it when I was preparing to do my taxes in late February. As soon as I found out how much my tax refund was going to be that year I went online and booked tickets to Ireland. The rest is history - I've been obsessed with travel ever since and have made it my personal goal to take at least one international trip each year and I aim to visit every continent except Antarctica during my lifetime.
Other ideas that have just been a flash in the pan...
A few years ago I got some random idea that I wanted to photograph all of the California Missions. I spent a couple days mapping out where all of the missions are, which ones could be done in short day or weekend trips, figuring out which ones were in the closest proximity to one another and would be feasible to visit two in the same day.
I also thought it would be cool to photograph California lighthouses and/or boardwalks.
However, have you seen or heard me speak of any photos of ANY of the missions, lighthouses, or boardwalks???
My latest idea? A walk for breast cancer research. This one has a bit of a surprise to it though. Its in October of next year (yep, 2009) and I would need to start training soon. I know what you're thinking "What? Train? For a WALK? Come on now Vanessa, you can't possibly be serious." But I am.
It is a 3-day, sixty mile, walk. Check it out.
So, am I crazy to consider this?
By the way, these are the glasses I ended up ordering
2 comments:
Cute glasses! I think it's great that you're going to train for the walk. Awesome awesome. I really hope your knees will not protest too vigorously.
20 miles a day is totally doable. I'd say go for it!
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