Hey
everybody! :D I hope y’all had a great St.
Patrick’s Day, and everyone who had a race this weekend did well and had a great time.
Well I have
some pretty exciting news to tell you. I am going to make my marathon debut this
year at the Cleveland Marathon on May 19th. I am super excited about this decision and
can’t wait for May to get here!
I have
always enjoyed the longer races and have built up my mileage for many years, to
the point I now feel ready to start getting some marathon experience as it is
my goal to one day make a career as a professional marathon runner. I am
excited to run such a great race as the Cleveland Marathon and am looking
forward to testing myself at this new distance and seeing what I can do. I have my family and friends’ full support in
this and I fully believe that I am making the right choice in following what I
truly want to do in running.
I am SOOO
excited about my marathon debut that I can hardly put it into words. And the
fact that the Cleveland Marathon is welcoming to me as I follow my goals and my
dreams means a lot to me, and I would like to graciously thank them for being
so supportive. I know that this is going
to be a great experience for me in the start of my longer distance racing
career. Thanks for the support and love
everyone. ©
You can follow me
on Twitter (@AlanaHadley)
~ Alana J
Follow and learn more about the Cleveland Marathon:
Cleveland Marathon Website – www.clevelandmarathon.com
Twitter - @clevelandmarathon and #CLEmarathon
Facebook – www.facebook.com/ClevelandMarathon
This is awesome! I am a huge fan of the Cleveland Marathon and have been participating for years. Best of luck running here, I am excited to see how you do!
ReplyDeleteGood luck!! Cleveland will actually be my first half marathon(: We may be the same age, but you're my role model. You are going to do amazing!
ReplyDeleteGood for you! I just read about you in the NYT. When I was in high school I practiced the piano 4 hours a day before getting Bachelors and Masters degrees in piano. I got up at 4:30 am so I could break it up and not have to do it all after school.
ReplyDeletePeople said I would ruin my health getting up that early. I am now in my 40s and work out regularly, I take competitive dance classes with Broadway chorus people in their 20s and blend in, and I've never been sicker than with a case of strep throat and have never been hospitalized.
People said my academics would suffer. I was a National Merit Scholar, class valedictorian, and graduated from college magna cum laude.
People said I would be socially stunted. It's true that I don't have friends who like to sit around all day and be entertained, but my social skills are fine. I was invited to a fundraiser yesterday at the home of Alex McCord and Simon Van Kempen (they were on a Real Housewives show), I was invited to see a friend starring in a play yesterday, and today I'm going to another party fro a friend who is back visiting in NYC after successfully launching a company in Savannah. I guess if by social skills, someone means the ability to be really interested in gossip and know how to get high and watch TV all evening, I have lousy social skills, but I'm glad! I have friends who share my drive and are motivated to fulfill their personal potentials, and we support each other and I have some deep relationships within that, plus I have been happily married for nearly 10 years.
Also people used to say that I was wasting my time because you can't make a living playing classical piano forever, and what was I ever going to do. Of course I thought they were crazy, and I did kind of have a mini-crisis when I realized there wasn't a big market out there for classical pianists. I came of age when the recording and touring opportunities were drying up, but before there was YouTube or any other way to come up with a unique twist and promote it yourself. But it turned out that the discipline and focus that I developed working on the piano made it very easy for me to go in any direction I wanted. I took some math classes at an engineering school and got As, I tried teaching and was elected President of my state's professional music teachers association, and finally I settled on acting...I did a two year acting program, started auditioning in January of this year, and I'll be playing the lead in a play in Manhattan next month.
All this to say, people who are criticizing you or trying to discourage you probably just can't relate to your drive. Your decisions probably WOULD make them unhappy, because they're just wired differently. The only regrets I have come from times when I have compromised my goals and plans, to try to fit in or to make somebody else feel more comfortable. None of my regrets come from focusing my efforts on going for what I wanted. So just keep doing what you are doing!