Do It Now
September 24, 2001: two days after setting my PR for the marathon in Logan, Utah, I wake up in a tent at Bryce Canyon National Park, and hike every trail in a day. This despite my body needing weeks more more recovery time and having given myself a huge blister the night before walking half a mile to a viewpoint to see the moonrise in cotton socks. The damage I do my body will permanently take me out of running marathons. What am I, stupid or something? I'd put it down to the folly of youth, but I was 40 at the time; but midlife crisis probably applies: I was between careers, between relationships, driving a bright red Celica, living in a commune. It was also just two weeks after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, an event that affected me deeply. Life seemed terribly fragile to me and incredibly precious all at once, something to be seized, embraced, experienced. What was the point to keeping a bucket list when life could be cut short randomly, abruptly, without ...