The Line

Everyone either knows someone or has heard the story of someone who has followed their dream, and achieved great success. I typically don’t pay much attention to these types of stories. Not that I don’t care, but I am generally happy in my life and what I have accomplished. So I don’t let these stories of grandeur cloud my vision or make me lose focus on my goals, until TODAY!

First, let me take a moment to tell you a little bit about myself. Several years ago I took up running. This was at a relatively low point in my life. Like many people in their 40’s I found myself over-weight, out of shape and somewhat discouraged with my life. I guess this is what they call a mid-life crisis.

Running came to my rescue. I started off running just a few days a week. Boy did it hurt, but I kept with it. Overtime the pain subsided and I actually began to enjoy it. My competitive nature quickly kicked in, and I began to wonder just how fast and/or far I could run. Enter racing.

I decided to run a marathon. I knew that this was my over-achieving nature talking, but refused to do anything less. I managed to make it to within 4 weeks of the race. I then suffered an Achilles pull which killed the marathon, and almost my dream.

In order to help recover from the injury I bought a bike. I soon found that this was just as enjoyable as running. A new vision appeared. Triathlon. However, due to my weakness in swimming, I finally conceded to sticking with duathlons instead.

Over the next few months I trained for a short duathlon, which I successfully completed. I was hooked. I immediately, with guns a-blazing, signed up for the American Zofingen Long Course Duathlon. I told you I do almost everything big. It is just the way I am.

With the help of the gang at Endurance Nation I managed to successfully train for and complete this race. Let me tell you it was one of the longest hardest day of my life. On the ride home, all I could talk about is what’s next? What next turned out to be the Tour of the Catskills. This was my foray into the world of cycling.

So you may be asking what does all of this have to do with other people’s dreams. Last night I ran across an article in Bicycling magazine. I was about a young rider who, within a year, had left her Wall Street job and achieved success as a professional cyclist. This is a pretty amazing feat.

So what you ask? Well, my job is still one area of my life that running/cycling has fixed. In fact it has made it worse. I would much rather be doing something involving running or cycling. In fact, be a “professional” has crossed my mind more then once. So stories like this give me pause and encouragement to just follow my dreams.

So, “Is 42 years old to old to follow your dreams?”. Stay tuned to find out.