10,000 Mile Goal

When I started walking/jogging in 2010, I did not have any long term plan or goals.  The plan was simply to get off the couch and exercise.  After building up to it, I just started doing half marathons.  After about four or five of them, I started losing interest.  Also since my initial goal was met, I started losing motivation. 

To re-focus, I came up with the idea of doing 100 distance races before I retire.  This has worked out well.  I very much enjoy this – I like finding the races, planning for them, visiting new areas, finding new restaurants,...  The twist to this (for me) was deciding to do different distances leading up to the 100 race mark.  It just added a dimension to this that I really enjoy.

Another addition that has made this more interesting for me was to include hiking.  While doing some of the trail races, the thought kept on coming back to me - I need to do some hiking so I can see and appreciate the woods more than I do during a race. This lead to including the goal of hiking the Appalachian Trail In Georgia.

However, I did come to another bump in the road.  As the 100 race goal will spread things over a five to seven year time frame, I needed/wanted some other way to track/measure things more on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.  That is where the 10,000 mile goal will help me.  So along with the 100 distance races before retirement, I’ve added the dimension of also walking/jogging/hiking at least 10,000 miles before retirement.  With this plan, every mile that I walk/jog/hike counts towards the 10,000 mile goal.  Every single steps gets me closer to retirement!

Graphically, this distance is the equivalent of walking from Miami, Florida to Anchorage, Alaska and back!