November 26th, 2008 | categorizilation: all categories,Arrival Home,New Zealand,Post-2008
Coming home…no…arriving in Christchurch was actually a hugely depressing thing. Like physiologically depressing. Like anxiety, butterflies in my stomach.
For the last three days since my arrival at my parent’s house, I have been feeling very down. I got to meet my family, which should have been a fantastic experience. It was wonderful seeing them all again, but all the time I couldn’t help but envy their settled-ness and direction. They all had jobs. Many of them had families. And me? I had an airy fairy idea that I would write a book. I have no idea how to write a book. I have ideas where I might start in that process (reading over all my blog material), but still…
So, to tide me over in my state of frustration of not being on top of things, for better or for worse, I have entered the Motatapu Icebreaker 2009 marathon event. This is a 50km run across a high country station between Glendhu Bay (Wanaka) and Arrowtown. As soon as I entered, I felt a lovely rush of excitement. Such a familiar rush. When you decide to do something, something that has a tangible and measurable result, but you know that you actually haven’t attempted such a thing before, and have no guarantee of success.
But I’m the kind of person that needs an excuse to be physically active. Just running around the block a few times a day for the sake of keeping fit doesn’t appeal to me. To have a tangible goal to work towards is such a powerful thing, as I can attest to from my various individual goals over ther years (Cycle to London, skate across the US, skate across China). Or of course, to just decide that I will cycle or skate to work rather than drive the car (accidental exercise), which is probably the most no-brainer method of keeping physically active, without even having to go out of your way to do it!
But anyway, back to the rush. I was excited not only by the prospect of doing something I’ve never done before, but also because it gives me a tangible goal that I can work towards while I sort out other aspects of my life. So…to the training I go.
In other news today, The Press (the local Canterbury paper) ran a great article on my journey. The longboard I am riding is a board I made with my own hands during University. It is a super heavy plywood core fibreglass beast. I was stoked to get back on it!
I also had an interview with RadioNZ which you can listen to here: http://www.radionz.co.nz/__data/assets/audio_item/0005/1793993/aft-20081126-1410-Skateboarding_around_the_world-m048.asx
And yes, I do realise what 12,000 + 12,000 equals. My sincere apologies to those listeners who may have been offended by my apparent lack of arithmetic skills.
