Prologue

Over the years, I’ve worked harder and harder to find meaning in life. But the more I've looked, the more I’ve wondered if I was going about my search the wrong way.

I've been looking for meaning through experience, but I think now that I've always had it backwards. Life will never be defined by extravagant experience, but about finding extravagance in common experience. So for 2009, I'm going to focus less on living large, and focus more on living well. Each month I'll start a new month-long project (like trying to run 3 miles faster than George Bush), to find uncommon results from common experience. Each project will involve daily activity, so every day of 2009 you can check my progress on the monthly projects and see what I discover.

None of these projects will cost much—in fact, I think most will be free. So if you're looking for a year uncommonly rich, you can join me. There's no membership required, just participate and comment if you want. Either way, get ready for a year I hope is unlike any other.

Epilogue

I stumbled across the finish line, but I manage to complete 8 of the month-long projects successfully. Blogging is now over at Wonderfam!

It's February, and February was a …

A Month of Accomplishment (about)

~ or ~

Forcing myself to finish something (about)

01
23

Working out in stereo

Written by Nathan on January 23, 2009 at 11:35 pm from A Month of Resolve.

Tonight at the Y I had the good fortune of running into my friend and co-work, Gus Davies. Gus is one of the most pleasant people that I know and for 20 minutes we biked next to one another, until he split for some weightlifting. In the 23 days I’ve been pursuing Bush’s best 3-mile time, this is the first time I’ve worked out with another person.

The experience was jarring for it’s utter lack of familiarity. After weeks of workout solitude, having a friend seated so close recontextualized my entire experience. Gone was the freedom of pace, here instead was the awareness that someone would know if I was taking it easy. Gone was the ability to purely focus on my mechanics and effort, replaced with easy conversation.

The net result of my workout was similar to previous solo bikings: 7:30 for the first three miles with a fair steady 2:50/mile pace for the half an hour. But the whole time I just felt off in this new workout environment.

All of this has me wondering how I’ll do on January 31. I’ve signed up for a 5k, and there are so many strange variables. Instead of running alone, I’ll have more than a thousand people with me. Instead of running at night, the race starts at 7:30. Instead of running through my neighborhood, I’ll run through Universal Studios. Throw into the mix that this is my first 5k and this could all be a recipe for disaster.

So it’s likely that these huge changes will also result in a huge change in my time. But I’m worried that my new numbers would be for the worse and not for the better. At least with an early morning start time, I’ll have day to recover and stage an end-of-day run if I need to.

No Comments