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Saturday, June 18, 2011

22

In two hours, I will be 22.  Yet instead of feeling like my youth is slipping through my fingers, I suddenly feel like anything is possible. I don't mean to make a mountain out of a molehill here, because I am certainly not "good" at running yet; I've yet to run my first race and my pace is painfully slow. But tonight, on the eve of my birthday, I ran over two miles. Even at the fittest I've ever been in my life, I've never been able to run two miles continuously. And somehow, getting involved in running, researching the best running shoes [I'm hopelessly addicted to Vibram Fivefingers Classics], reading everything I can get my hands on about ultramarathoners [Born to Run and anything by Dean Karnazes is fantastic] has rejuvenated my spirit in a way that traveling the world never did. Sure, if you have the funds and an adventurous spirit, you can travel the world and have adventures. But running- pushing yourself to your limit and then barreling past it- is a whole new kind of adventure. The earth itself has limits, but the human spirit has none.

Triathletes and marathoners hit their strides in their late twenties and early thirties. While going to the Olympics for nearly any other sport at age 35 would seem ludicrous, it's not uncommon to see even older athletes lining up at the starting line for Olympic marathon trials. I'm not even suggesting that one day I would be good enough to do these things, but they're still possibilities. And at this point in my life, where my dreams of cheering in college, of marrying a prince [just kidding on that one- my fiance is better than any musty old prince any day], of being an Olympic gymnast, and countless other dreams have been exhausted, possibilities are exhilarating.  I thought after my knee surgery that I would never again be able to push my body to its breaking point, and yet I've started to do just that.

I'm so excited about this new chapter of my life and about all these new possibilities. Twenty-two is going to be the best year yet, and I can't wait to see what happens.

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