If You Have An Idea, You Have To Act On It

I think I will always remember 2015 as the year of busy. All the things that I've volunteered to do are hilariously overwhelming sometimes. This started in January, the over-volunteering of things, and it seems that as one of my fairly major events ends, I feel the overwhelming desire to replace that one thing with two others. I go to bed simply exhausted every night, waking far too early the next morning to begin yet another day of cooking up ideas and acting on them. I'm so very happy doing this, too. It's a good tired, knowing that I've accomplished so much.

One of my bright ideas was to host a 5K in conjunction with our church's annual corn maze. We host a corn maze every Saturday in October, and have for over 10 years. My husband and I have been very much involved in this for most of those years, but I stepped back and kind of let him do his thing there. This year, I put my nose in again, because a 5K sounded like a fun new addition. Right? A fun run, where you can come dressed to a theme, or in a Halloween costume, or bring your dog. It would be... fun.

But if I have the bright idea to host a 5K event, then I should probably run a 5K myself to see what actually goes into the operating of one. At least from the runner's perspective. Confession: I've never been to a 5K event before. Ever. I have zero idea what all is involved. While the great and glorious world of the internet is so helpful in providing information on how to do anything, there's nothing like some good old fashioned hands-on experience.

I signed up for a 5K so that I could experience what goes on at one from a runner's perspective. What did I like? What do I need to provide to runners? How much is a typical registration fee? What time does one start and how long should I plan for the event to run? All these, and so many more questions will be answered at the race that I signed up for.

But one can't sign up alone in a 5K, so I signed Luke up as well. He ran track at school this year, so it would keep him in shape over summer. (Running that one 5K...) And then I signed Micah up to walk with my mother-in-law, who signed up to join the event with me. Luke and I will be running as much as I can, and my Mother-in-law and Micah will be walking.

And then, because I signed up for a 5K and I'm not a runner, I had to start running. This is part of the reason that I get up at 5:30 in the morning, so that I have time to run without having to worry about being interrupted by Micah making himself breakfast or the dogs needing out or the phone ringing. And by "run" I mean that I lightly jog for all of 2 minutes before my lungs scream for mercy and then threaten to collapse in on themselves and I have to go back to walking.

I'm terribly out of shape. But 2015 is also the year that I've vowed to get into shape again, so this is a good thing, this collapsing of the lungs.

Have I mentioned that this race I'm scheduled for is next weekend? As in 10 days away? It is. It's 10 days away. There is no earthly way I'll be running that race, and I may or may not even pretend to lightly jog, because having your lungs collapse after jogging for 90 seconds is embarrassing enough with nothing but the blue sky watching, but in front of (or far behind) a couple hundred other runners is not my idea of the best time of my life.

I do have motivation to continue training so that I actually CAN run, however. This is 2015, the year where I over commit myself, and I have a booth to sell candles and collars at a fundraiser for a dog park 2 hours away. The sooner I can finish the race, the sooner I can get there and make money to reimburse myself for all the race fees that I spent to learn about hosting a 5K.

Here's to the rest of 2015 being the year where I learn to gracefully handle over commitment, and perhaps even run without my lungs collapsing in on themselves. That would be a banner year.