The Magic of the Mystery

I’m on the tail end of my first week of marathon training. One more run tomorrow morning and then I will check off week 1. After that 17 more.

It’s an interesting thing, marathon training.

In a lot of ways the act of training for the marathon is a bigger deal than showing up and running 26.2 miles on a designated Saturday morning. To train you have to get your ducks in a row months and weeks beforehand. And then, you have to commit. You commit to showing up each and every week for 4 days a week to do the act of running.

This is dedication. Discipline. It’s what 75 Hard is so great at helping you to build from my experience.

I started running again at the beginning of February. I was preparing a decent base before the training started this past week. Ideally, I would have started a bit sooner. But since I didn’t know that I would be running a marathon a bit sooner, that wasn’t possible.

And so, beginning when I did was good enough. Since first sliding on my running shoes again after an extended hiatus, I haven’t clocked more than three miles. Saturday I do six.

I’m not too concerned about the upcoming miles. I’ve run that many miles before and I am confident that I can do it again. It’s more so what comes after that. The build. The click, click, click of a rollercoaster as it takes you to the very top. To a place you’ve never touched before. To a place where you know that you’re about to drop into a crazy experience, but you don’t know exactly what to expect.

Exploring the next 17 weeks in my mind provides me with the space to fill with wonder.

What will life be like at that time?

Each day I show up and do my things. Work, workout, cook, eat, meditate, walk Lily, sleep. The days seem so monotonous but upon reflection at any point we can see great change. It’s always happening within us and around us.

Five months ago I was newly married, unable to workout, and just beginning to rekindle my morning routine.

Today I am wading through the waters of marriage, training for a marathon, and haven’t missed a day of my morning routine yet.

Five months from now I’ll be…. where?

I could type up a speculation based on my current dreams, aspirations, and plans but in the end that’s all they are. Speculations.

Realistically, I have no idea what I’ll be saying about marriage. You know what the elusive they say, “the first year of marriage is the hardest.” I’m not saying that my marriage is awful and burning to the ground by any means, but I do believe that this phrase has been accurate for us thus far. Lots of hard. Figuring things out. To an extent I believe that we’ll always be figuring things out, but ideally that will be something we’re doing in our own home where I can finally unpack my belongings after what is now 2+ years of what I consider to semi-homelessness, living in a home but not in a home of my own.

As for the marathon, in five months I will have completed the marathon. Who knows what that experience will be like. The weather. The way my body feels. How fast I go. The outfit I’ll be wearing. The whole thing. A mystery.

And the morning routine. Much more of the same. I’ll still be doing my thing, but my thing may look different. I’ve been craving a bit of a switch up, feeling like I’ve gotten what I’ve needed from my current practices. But one thing will remain true, I’ll still prioritize that bit of time to connect in that way.

And so all of the wonder and speculation is fun, but that’s all it is. In the past I have so easily gotten caught up in the hamster wheel of control. Creating this idea of what I want the future experience to be. Oftentimes expectations smother the pure beauty of what is and what will be. And while it’s fun to explore what marathon day will be like in my mind it’s even more fun to know that I don’t know. To recognize that not knowing is the true gift. All that I have to do is show up day after day for 17 more weeks and then the experience will come, exactly as it’s meant to be. And being in a state of openness to whatever it will be sets me up to experience the magic of the mystery.