As 2013 winds down and I look back on it, it has turned out to be an extremely productive year. The year didn’t start off that different than the previous years other than my regular trips to the gym to work out. I had never been a fan of the gym – I don’t like crowds and I always preferred to do any workouts at home, though I don’t have any weights and was limited to bodyweight exercises. A group of friends at work play soccer on Thursdays and in the spring, we decided to add a second day of soccer on Mondays. I played both days most weeks from New Year’s to Memorial Day.
One thing I tried to do more this year was take chances and opportunities. I liken it to the movie Yes Man where Jim Carrey’s character says yes to anything that comes his way, though I was les liberal with my acceptances. In February I agreed to be team captain of our company’s Relay for Life team. We hadn’t fielded a team in 2012 and our team in 2011 was small, so I was hoping to get a good bounce-back. We rolled through several fundraisers – one a week – for two months until the night of the Relay. We ended up raising around $4500 in two months’ time with a sizable team of almost twenty walkers. It was exhausting and I swore that I would not be captaining again in 2014, though I did write up all my thoughts on the process – what worked, what didn’t, and thoughts for next year – to be given to the next captain.
On February 13th, I took the day off work to spend the day at the movie theatre watching a Die Hard marathon before a late-night premiere of the new movie, A Good Day to Die Hard. I had never seen the first three movies on the big screen, so it was worth the admission just for that experience, as Die Hard is my favorite movie. The new movie was pretty bad – it made an okay action movie, mostly forgettable, but it was a horrible Die Hard movie. I wouldn’t see any other Hollywood movies in theatres this year, but I did see Mile… Mile and a Half at the Athen’s Theatre in Deland, where I would also see All Shook Up and The King is Back, and I also saw Appalachian Impressions.
Also in February and March, a coworker asked if I wanted to canoe down Rock Springs Run, which we did four times over about five or six weeks, culminating in an overnight camping trip at the Otter Campsite along the run. This led to many weekends hanging out and many new experiences throughout the year.
In early February, I had gotten an email about the Space Coast Marathon and how they were planning to do a five-year event with medals celebrating the space shuttles. I immediately signed up for the marathon, figuring I had a whole year to get ready for it. I had always wanted to do a marathon and a flat Florida course seemed like a good start. I wouldn’t actually start training for several months though.
In late April I started running shorter races, the Healthy Heart 10K, the Run for the Trees 5K, the Seminole High School Spirit 5K, the Rescue Run 5K, the Lake Mary 5K, and The Nude Run 5K. A friend had told me about the Healthy Heart 10K, happening just down the street from where I live and I had only run one 10K previously, so I jumped on it. The Run for the Trees 5K was one I had run before, but you get a tree for completing it, so I had specifically looked it up online in order to run it again. It also runs through private communities that have very nice scenery. The Rescue Run 5K is one that happens in the park next to where I work and our company sponsors a team every year, so I competed in it for the third or fourth time. The Seminole High School Spirit 5K runs through my old high school and the parking lot of my old middle school, so it was a nostalgic race for me and also culminated in my fastest 5K ever. The Lake Mary 5K was another race close by that took place near the library I go to, so it was a familiar area. I decided to do the Nude Run 5K while looking for races with something exciting to offer, as opposed to the mundane show up and run 5K.
ren3gade 