Bucket List

On June 26, 2011, I spent 1 hour and about 13 minutes of a half marathon running behind another female runner wearing her bucket list on the back of her black tank top.  This drove me crazy and inspired me.  It drove me crazy because only numbers 1 and 2 were completely visible and I was left to fill in the blanks for 3 and.  It inspired me to think about my own bucket list.  I'm 30, I guess I need one.

Black tank top was driven by her desire to (1) live on a sailboat, (2) attend the Olympics and MAYBE (3) complete an ironman and (4) learn to make _________.  I was so irritated by my inability to fill in the blank on #4 that I charged up next to black tank top, ready to ask her what it said and have a meaningful conversation about life, lists and how we'd accomplish everything we wanted to.  However, her iPod was up, she didn't look over and I chickened out and just kept running.  Huge regret.

After a week of thinking about my own Bucket List, I can say, without question or hesitation, that the following items are on it:
1. Run the Philadelphia Marathon in 2011;
2. Qualify for the Boston Marathon;
3. Live abroad for an extended period of time;
4. Be published;
5. Run a sub-20-minute 5k;
6. Drive across the country;
7. Buy my grandparents' shore property back (just sold after they passed away) and replant his tomato garden;
8. Argue before a higher Court of Appeals;
9. Learn to play the piano - again; and
10. Teach a class in something to someone, somewhere.

This list surely isn't exclusive but it is representative of where I am right now.  Shockingly, it is not training/running exhaustive.  The more thought I put into this, the more I realized that while training takes up a substantial part of my day - whether thinking about it, doing it or worrying about it as races get closer - it does not define me.  It is part of me.  And that's a pretty important balance to strike.