A New Sport... Endurance Dating?

I have thought about a couple of things I wanted to write about in the last couple of days, but I haven't sat down to write about them. (I've sat down plenty of times to READ other people's blogs though!) So now I'm trying to figure out how to mesh all of these ideas together. This is a disclamor in case this post just doesn't flow right.

I have decided to train for a marathon...or a half marathon at least. I have always liked running, although I've never been very consistent about my practicing. I run for the fun of it when I have time and I'm not doing something funner. So, in recent years, because of how fun my life is normally, this means I haven't been running much at all. But in the last couple of weeks I've been trying to find a goal that I could throw myself into and work hard at. I like the feeling of achieving, and in order to get that high I have to devise goals to achieve! A desire to exercise more and witnessing several running events pushed me toward the running goal. I am not a fast runner, but I have a lot of endurance. I ran cross country in high school. At first I couldn't keep running the entire race. But I soon realized that I controlled my endurance. If I couldn't keep running because of the pace I was going at, I would slow down so that I could keep running. This has made it so that I hardly even like to stop for breaks when I'm running or hiking. I prefer going at a slow and steady pace that I can maintain for extended periods of time.

On Tuesday of this week, I had to use this endurance in normal life. I moved all of my stuff out of my apartment on Monday night, slept at my new place (I love Lorie's and my apartment!), then came back to my old apartment on Tuesday to make sure all the cleaning was done and move out a few things I had left behind. Then I waited to be checked out by the complex management. After that I went home to put a few things away at the new place, and then I went BACK to Alta to get my car towed away (it's been dead for a few months). Then I waited around to help my roommate Jolena move her stuff from our apartment to her new apartment, in the other ward in Alta. While I was waiting to help her, I helped the gals that were moving into our old apartment. They lived in an apartment down on the first floor, so I helped them move stuff up to the third floor. At first it wasn't that hard, but as I kept going upstairs with armloads of heavy stuff I started getting very tired. So I started drinking water when I was on my way into the apartment to get another armload. And I started to walk slower. And I kept going. Every time I walked up the stairs I had a view of a couple sitting by the pool with their legs hanging over the side into the water. They looked so comfortable, and I wanted to be there in the pool. But I knew that there would be time for that later. I finished helping everyone, then I changed and got in the pool for a refreshing swim. What a nice reward!

For more than a month I've been planning on hiking Timp. And today, when it was supposed to happen, I didn't get to go. This is a pretty big disappointment. I hiked the mountain twice last summer, loving it, and I was looking forward to going with my friends and enjoying it again. For one reason or another, all of the people that I knew that were planning on going had to cancel. There were still plenty of people that were planning according to the event on facebook, but some of them were planning on meeting at the trail head, and some of them were supposed to meet me at the lounge in my old complex. Well, no one showed up at the lounge. I've been really bummed. This isn't just about having no one to go to Timp with. I feel like things just haven't been going as I want them to in the last few weeks, and this is the culmination of those feelings.

Of course, one of the biggest frustrations of those weeks is in dating. Looking back at all of my dating experiences, I can see some things I've learned and gained from each relationship and friendship. But it's hard to see those things while you're marathoning through. I can definitely see the rewards that I'll have at the end of the trip; I am living with an engaged woman after all! I know that dating is worth it in order to get married. But I've definitely lost a lot of my zeal for dating just to date. I want to feel like it's worth it. To carry the running analogy further, I guess my next step should be to slow down, to pace myself, so that I can maintain my pace to the end. The problem is that I don't know how long this journey is going to be. I guess I just have to have faith that I can keep running until the end...