Savoring the memories

Gilligan's trip to Bruster's last week...he loves Brusters because they give a free doggie sundae to well behaved dogs like Gilligan. We typically go 2 or 3 times a month during the summer, right after the Fleet Feet Fun run

About to order a Banana Split because on thursdays it's half price banana split night if you bring your own banana, yum!

Gilligan saying "Thank you" for his doggie Sundae!

Gilligan enjoying his doggie sundae

Enjoying his freebie doggie sundae! Gilligan likes to take his time eating his sundae. This is fine when it is 80 degree's out but you will notice this trip to Brusters, both Tristan and I had fairly thick winter clothing on.

Last week I attended a small workshop (The Federal Mentoring Roundtable) which was really interesting and refreshing. As a statistician my job is not necessarily very exciting. In fact most days I sit quietly in my office reading items, writing reviews and analyzing data. But the day I attended this workshop was special because I got to interact with people!

One of the topics was "Savor the Moment". There were several discussion points and suggestions within this seminar which really made alot of sense to me.

1) Take pictures of everything! I try to live out this suggestion in my races because I never know when my last race will be (particularly since my knee that suffered the brunt of my car accident injury many years ago could easily get re-agitated). And knowing that I may never travel/do certain races again creating a photo essay of my experience helps me to remember races, friends, experiences as though they just happened.

2) Take time to savor, reflect and reward... Savor every experience and live in the moment. Sometimes I envy my dog, Gilligan because he lives in the moment. It may be a good moment, it may be a bad moment, but regardless he is living it (sadly without wild abandon but that is because he is lazy). Again in running I do really try to live out this philosophy and appreciate the journey.

3) Live like there is no tommorrow...So often in life we are held back because of proper decorum. But people who do what they like, like what they do and live like there is no tommorrow probably have the greatest satisfaction. Once in a while I act in a way with wild abandon, but often my filters prevent me from fully engaging. Marathons and Ultra's are one of the times I feel fully engaged...In fact I may have embarrassed both my sister and my husband at the end of the JFK50 mile in 2008 when I was dancing and cheering on the last few runners finishing within the time limit of 7 p.m. I was thoroughly enjoying myself and so far a video of my antics has not showed up on "youtube":-)

In the next week I will have more time because I need to taper a bit for Umstead. With this time I hope I can live out some of these suggestions.