It’s raining for what will hopefully be the last weekend before our glorious long summer dry season here in northern California.  I am ready for it to STOP.

That being said, the precipitation has precipitated an enormous amount of blog productivity on my part.

Actually, to simply say blog productivity would be a bit limiting to its overall scope so I’m going to call it The Project.

What is The Project?  Well, that’s for me to know and you to wonder.  At least in the short term .

But I have been planning some big changes to this site.  BIG ones.  The changes may even involve a URL switch, but if that’s the case you’ll be duly informed.

No massive undertaking can be successful without clearly stated goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely (SMART!), however, and those I have been hard at work on as well.  I won’t reveal them just yet – I ‘m going to save that for the re-launch.  But here are some hints on my seven mid-term goals (to be accomplished in 1-5 years, although all except two I am aiming to accomplish in two years or less).

Goal #1 is a fitness goal.  And not just any fitness goal, but a competitive fitness goal.

Goal #2 is a personal finance goal.

Goal #3 is an entrepreneurship goal.

Goal #4 is a charity/philanthropic goal.

Goal #5 is a language learning goal.

Goal #6 is a travel goal.

Goal #7 is a writing goal.

I’m dying to reveal exactly what they are but I really want to save them for the site re-launch, where I can marshal all my forces to make as big a splash as possible.  If you’re a smart person (and I know you are, because you’re reading this site), you might surmise that the theme of the new site might just happen to follow the themes of these goals.

I want to be honest here right from the beginning: I have always had a hard time sharing my personal goals with others.  Why?  Well, for the same reason 99 percent of the people out there either don’t make goals or never share them with others: I was afraid of failure.  I am still afraid of failure.  But I have two choices: I can 1) keep my goals to myself, maybe accomplish them, and maybe not, but otherwise live with the satisfaction of knowing that I successfully hid my success or lack thereof from everyone I know.  Or 2) I can put myself out there, and assume every drop of risk involved with possibly making a fool out of myself.  As Winston Churchill said, “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”  If I don’t start giving myself the opportunity to fail, I will never find the opportunity to succeed.

…But there are a couple of things I need to do first.  I need to find a kick-ass web designer who can take this site from lame to fame within a reasonable budget (if you have any suggestions or would like to offer your services, let me know!).  I also need to crank the little writing machine that lives in my brain into high gear to create lots of stellar content that will keep you, and lots of new readers, coming back to the site.  And I need to do more marketing research.  I’m making progress on all these fronts.

So please stay tuned, and keep checking in.  I sincerely appreciate you taking your valuable time to read what I have to say.  I hope not to let you down — there are big things coming.

Photo by Marco Bellucci.

Runners climb a Marin Headlands trail, December 5

Trail Heads, the trail running blog over at Runner’s World, has a post today about the North Face Endurance Challenge Championships, held this past Saturday in the Headlands.

This past weekend saw over 1,000 trail runners pushing their limits in championship races, and a small handful of those runners winning large paychecks for their efforts.

The North Face Endurance Challenge Championships took place on the trails of Marin County, California, just north of San Francisco, with a 10K, a half-marathon, a 50K and a 50-miler. All four races sold out, with almost 900 runners hitting the starting line on Saturday morning.

The 50-miler was the premier event, with a whopping $10,000 prize on the line for the winning male and female, with a total of $30,000 cash purse. This is big money in trail running, and a competitive field assembled to chase it down.

After reading I had to let out a big <sigh>.  Last year in December, I ran the Endurance Challenge Half-Marathon, finishing my first trail running 13.1-miler in a middle-of-the-pack 2 hours and 18 minutes.  While I would likely not have been anywhere near contending for the five-figure prize money this past weekend (perhaps someday though!), from the beginning of this year it was my goal to run the 50K (31-mile) race at the 2009 NFEC.

So I assert, with enthusiasm (yes, with enthusiasm), that one of my goals for 2010 will be to run the 50K race at next year’s Endurance Challenge. I’m adding it to the list of goals that will be going up on this site soon.  And with that, I’ll head off to do my stretching and icing for my knee, taking one more step on the road to recovery that leads back to Rodeo Beach in the Headlands the first weekend in December, 2010.

Photo by The North Face.