It’s February 2nd! It’s Groundhogs Day!— Updates and Turning Points
For a long time, I’ve maintained that Groundhog Day, February 2nd, might be my favorite day of the year. Let me explain. First, the Harold Ramis movie is in my top 5 movies of all time, and I’ve made a ritual of rewatching every year, sometimes live-tweeting along my favorite lines (this was, admittedly, more fun back before I quit drinking). But I also think of Groundhog Day as being the turning point in the year, when we go from winter being even more dark and depressing day after day as we move away from Christmas into things gradually improving, weather getting better, days getting noticeably longer, and Spring Break starting to appear bigger and bigger on the calendar. The year bottoms out sometime around the end of January and then goes on a run of steady improvement that peaks somewhere around the 4th of July.
I started this project because things were at a pretty dark time for me personally, and I wanted something positive to hold onto and take some ownership of (for those that don’t know, I’m planning on running 5 half marathons in 5 states in July, and I’m doing it to raise money for the National Diaper Bank Network). It is now about three months since I started drawing up plans for my trip, and having this as something to work on has given me something to focus on and a place to see gradual improvement, which has helped me out as things around me seem to get even worse. I was starting to feel discouraged a week or two ago, but donations are suddenly starting to pick up speed, and I feel like, maybe, groundhog day is the turning point. Here are some updates about why I’m feeling optimistic:
-Over the last week, donations to the project have come close to doubling. That’s money set aside for me to donate to the National Diaper Bank Network, an organization that I know converts every dollar they receive into genuine good for people who need it. And its also money set to help fuel the project, which is great because…
-I’ve invested a lot of personal capital into the project already. I am now registered to run all 5 races— Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Washington, and Idaho, I’ve booked most of my campgrounds—- Yellowstone and Grand Teton all set, waiting on Glacier to open up their booking, and I’ve reserved the AirBnBs I’ll need on the race days so I have a safe place for my dog to hangout on race days. I’m splitting donations to the project between into equal portions for the Diaper Bank and for overhead on the trip, and now that a few more donations have come in I’m covering a bit less on the old credit card.
-My training is coming along nicely. I was basically starting at zero at the beginning of December after nearly two months in a walking boot. For at least the first month, I was in pain and really limited as I gradually worked my way back into things. For the last month, I’ve started to see results, but my ability to get out and run was really limited by weeks of snow and cold. We’re getting a burst of temperate weather now, though, which coincides nicely with me starting to feel like I’m 100% my old self when I’m out running. I did almost 5 miles at Fort Ben today, and I was pain free and able to hold a respectable pace. With a few months still to train, I feel confident that I will be back at full half marathon fitness before I leave.
-Engagement on the various social media accounts I created for the project is starting to pick up. Most of the support I’ve received to this point has been from friends and family, but the Instagram and Bluesky accounts I created specifically for this have started to get more attention. This is great because I haven’t had much running content to post there. The runs I’ve done have almost all been in gray, overcast, wintery Indiana, and if people are interested in that then I know I can get people engaged when I’m able to post from the Rocky Mountains. I can keep the fundraiser going all the way through the end of July, and once I cover my planned budget then 100% of every donated dollar goes to the Diaper Bank. Facebook has gotten my project started, but if I can get a toehold on Instagram I can hopefully really blow it out this summer.
-I started this project because I was feeling pretty depressed and helpless, and I don’t feel that way any more. My injury coincided with some very bleak national and international news, and that was all very hard on me because I couldn’t rely on exercise as a stress relief to help me process it. It’s easy for the news to make me feel overwhelmed, and now that I can run again and I seeing results on this project, I’m increasingly insulated against that feeling. When I scroll through social media, I see many many people repeating that they have all this anger and frustration and nothing to do with it. The hard reality is, there really isn’t anything we can do to change the big picture in the short term. Some very limited opportunities present themselves from time to time, but the reality is things continue moving without our say so almost all the time. But anyone can make changes and take actions in their own small part of the world that can produce a measurable, beneficial impact. For me, exercising and raising money are two of those things. Thanks for helping me to do them!
