Saturday, February 27, 2010

The rewards of goal setting

I discovered today how rewarding it is to set goals, and more importantly, to work toward achieving them with other people. My friend and I decided a couple of weeks ago that we wanted to run a 5K and hurried to sign up for the Feb. 27 OC Hope & Harmony walk. Soon after, I found that we were pushing each other to run farther and faster than I might have done on my own (I can't speak for her too but I'd like to think it was mutual!) Suddenly it was "race day" and all our hard work and preparation was going to be tested. We arrived at the site around 7:15 a.m. to the midst of what I would categorize as "torrential downpour." It did not stop raining for the entire 45 minutes we were waiting for the 8 a.m. start time. Soaking wet, drenched to the bone, freezing cold, and completely not in the right mind set to start the race, we stood on the starting line waiting for the whistle to blow. At that moment the skies opened up and it was almost as if someone had dumped an entire bucket of water on our heads because it started to rain even harder! It was unbelievable but at that point we had to laugh because there was nothing else we could do. The most amazing part is though as soon as the whistle blew to signify the start, it stopped raining for the entire duration of the race. So even though we were still wet and cold, it was no longer raining which was a really good thing. The best part is we were able to out-run our goal by three minutes, and we finished within a few seconds of each other. It was a very rewarding feeling to exceed our expectations and to have each other as motivation to do our very best. The moral of the story? Set a goal for yourself, find a friend to join you, and you may be surprised by your results!

5 comments:

  1. Hooah!!! Great job, and for a very altruistic purpose, how can it get better than that?

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  2. w00t w00t go candice with the 27 min time! did you eat alot of fettuccine Alfredo?! haha jk! well how about a quote.

    "Finishing that 5k was the hardest thing ive ever done in my life"
    --Michael Scott--

    Haha love ya candice keep up the good work!

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  3. LOL! I can just picture this! You found a lot of positives in this fantastical series of events. And beat your goal. Way to go Candice!

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  4. Way to go honey bear, glad to hear that you "just did it!!!"

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