Audacious!

"Reach for the stars, for if you fall short, you will still land on the moon"- somebody famous



What's the point of dreaming if you dont dream big?  I mean, really lets think about this.  If you are dreaming and making plans for things that you know you can do, what really is the point?  Life is about finding our limits, and pushing ourselves beyond them; not settling (many times out of a fear of failure), for something that is already within our grasp.  Life is about having a dream so big and so audacious that others call you crazy for even thinking it, let alone attempting it.  When you are training for it or getting ready for your goal, these non-dreamers will tell you to "take it easy", or "pace yourself", "dont push too hard". If you fail, they will tell you that it was too big, or that you shouldnt have ever tried.  However; when you complete it, those same people will be left speachless.

I take this attitude with pretty much anything in life, or at least I try to, but no area more so than my running.  My first race, when I began running wasnt a 5k...no, with two weeks of training I chose to race a really hard 10k.  Why?  Because anyone can run a 5k...I wanted to go bigger.  I wanted to push myself through a barrier that I didnt know was there.  I knew that the Half Marathon and Marathon was much too far on newbie legs, and I didnt want to walk...so I chose the 10k, which climbed over a huge hill right in the middle...seriously the course was a loop, but it was uphill the whole way..I swear!  (I finished that first race and took 3rd in my age group).

Now, here I am, 4 years removed from that first race and actively (no kidding), planning out 50 and 100 mile races that I want to run, and wondering where my limits really are.  I thought my limits were at the Marathon, where I struggled to break 4:30...but I was wrong when I finished my first Ultra.  So now I am looking for more. 

I often find myself wondering, as I plan out these wild ideas...did anyone ever tell Neil Armstrong that the moon was "just too far away"?  What about Lance Armstrong, laying in his hospital bed fighting cancer and dreaming about cycling...did people tell him to "let it go"?  What about anybody who has ever done anything of use or of ambition?  Did people tell them to slow down, to pace themselves or to take it easy?  Or did people tell them that while their dreams were audacious, to go for it...because the only way you know how far you can go, is to put foot in front of the other until you simply cannot anymore. 

We can go further than we think, we can go harder than we think, we can do more than we think. Where are your limits?  What is your audacious dream that for some reason you havent gone for yet?