And so it begins...

So as much fun as I am having creating my bucket list, (and stealing ideas from friend's lists) creating a bucket list is no fun if you don't actually DO any of the things on your list.  Recently I've been lucky enough to become closer to someone I have known for a while, an amazing person, who also believes like I do that life without experiences isn't really much of a life.  So I am lucky enough to have someone who I can drag around to do things on our lists,  which is good, because her list is so much better than mine!  So it was with that sense of "lets just go do something" that we set out for Chicago on a day off.  Now let me explain something about my personality, I'm sort of a planner.  I say sort of because I'm really good with coming up with the grand idea of what to do, but where I lose focus is in the details.  This is because even though I am a bit of a planner, I'm like to be spontaneous and fly by the seat of my pants more often than not.  So anyway the original plan was to go into the city, go ice skating in Grant Park, do the Sears Tower (sorry, Willis Tower) skydeck, and then kinda see what happens from there.  Well anyway like most of my plans, things went to shit pretty quickly, as that morning I checked the weather and saw that it was freezing cold and windy out.  Cancel ice skating.  Time to scramble to come up with Plan B.  Ok...not a problem still can do the skydeck, and that will buy me time to come up with what to do after that.  So we head out, then I start to notice, it's really kinda cloudy and hazy out...I start to get that "oh crap" panic moment thinking this day that I planned and had been looking forward to was starting to go down the drain.  Anyway we get into the city and I see the cloud cover isn't too low to obscure the building tops so we decide to go to the skydeck, even thought the views wouldn't be that great, it was still something I wanted to do.  Now, I have a slight...ok, pretty severe fear of heights, but after a slight hesitation I stepped out into the clear cube and looked straight down 1,353 feet (103 floors.) Item #3 on my list, CHECK!

#3. Stand in the glass balcony in the Sears tower

How I became a reluctant runner

First a little about me...I don't have the typical runner physical shape, tall, lean, long legs.  In fact I'm pretty much the total opposite.  Not to mention I'm a ex smoker with messed up knees from years of skiing and military training.  Oh yeah I forgot to mention that I hate running.  So needless to say running didn't really hold a lot of interest for me.  Anyway about 3 years ago my work organized a 5K race to support wounded vets from Iraq and Afghanistan, which having been in the military and having friends who have done multiple deployments, is a cause that was close to my heart.  Not to mention that I had recently quit smoking and was looking to get in better shape, so I decided to go for it, I didn't care how long it took me to complete it or how far I could run without walking for a bit, I just wanted to finish.  So after a little bit of training, and I do mean a little bit, I ran it with another co-worker who also was just starting to run.  I don't think I slept a single wink the night before, I was so nervous and I don't even know why.  So I ran for about a mile and half, sucking wind the entire time, then we walked for a bit, ran some more, walked a bit, ran some more.  When I crossed the finish line with a horrible time of something like 38 minutes it was such a rush.  I had a sense of accomplishment that I had not felt in a very long time.  I remember thinking "holy shit, I did it."  Now this is where I think I got hooked.  That runner's high that I got was like a drug, not to mention that I've always liked to do something that no one expects I would do. Next thing you know I'd signed up for 3 more 5K's the rest of the season.  My third race ever I finally ran the 3.1 miles nonstop, no walking and again I got this unbelievable sense of accomplishment.  I think it also felt so amazing to finish a race because I still hated to run.  My wife at the time would ask me if I hated running so much, why the hell would I do this.  The short answer was because I did hate running.  Let's get real, it's only 3.1 miles, to an actual runner this is a warm up, but to me it was an accomplishment and forcing myself to run when all my brain and body just wanted me to do is quit, was such an incredible feeling that I couldn't step away from.  So I continued to run and that year I ran in four 5K's, each race my time would get better and I would get that high.  So then my wife passed away from breast cancer and one of the races that I had done the year before was to support breast cancer, so I set my sights on that race in May as my first race of 2012.  Now for me signing up for a race was motivation to actually train.  It was easy to blow off going for a run when you didn't have a race scheduled.  So as I started training I found that me going out and running helped me deal with my grief and anxiety.  Pretty soon I was running almost daily and it was this amazing way to make me feel better when things got overwhelming for me. Running became my therapy.  At the same time I started running with a friend and co-worker who at this point we were at about the same ability level.  Not only did that push my competitive button, but she also wanted to sign up for a bunch of races, and of course at this point I had no willpower and would pretty much agree to anything, so between May 2012 and January 2013 I've run sixteen 5k's and I'm currently planning a half marathon.

I've noticed that after 16 races in just under eight months, the runner high isn't as high anymore.  Don't get me wrong I still get a sense of accomplishment and I love the atmosphere and energy at some of these bigger races I've been in, I just don't have this huge sense of accomplishment anymore.  Now I always said I wouldn't run a marathon or even a half, but last October I ran in a 5K that had a 10K and a half marathon running as well and I saw those people finishing their half marathon and I began to think "I wonder how great that must feel to finish." That got my tiny brain thinking and I realized, just like a drug addict, I was chasing that high that I once had, now I just need a larger dose.  I still say that I won't run a full marathon, because training for that is like a full time job, not to mention it is hell physically on your body.  But then again I said that about a half marathon as well.  So anyway, that is the story of how I became a runner, which I only started to recently accept that term, even though my friends have called me a runner for quite some time now, I've always denied that I was a runner. I will keep this blog posted as I train for this half marathon in the fall and I'm sure run a crap load of 5K's and maybe some 10K's between now and then.

Stuff I've done

As I've been nosing around I've come across other people's bucket lists, and while I've gotten some great ideas reading these, I've also noticed that I've done a lot of the things that are on people's lists.  One thing I am grateful for is that so far I have lived a pretty good life, done a lot, and experienced a lot.  So with that in mind, I decided to compile a list of things that I've done that WOULD have been on my bucket list, if I had made one earlier, again in no particular order.

1. Bungee jump
2. Visit Times Square
3. Hike in a redwood forest
4. Drive around Lake Michigan
5. See the Statue of Liberty
6. Drive across the Golden Gate Bridge
7. Gamble in Vegas
8. See the Northern Lights
9. Go camping (real camping)
10. Attend a fish boil
11. Run a 5K
12. Go to New Orleans for Mardi Gras (ok I went during Jazz Fest, but close enough!)
13. Feed an alligator
14. See the Blackhawks win the Stanley Cup
15. Go snowboarding
16. Eat a cheeseburger at the Billy Goat Tavern
17. Visit the House on the Rock
18. Make a bet on horse racing
19. Attend a rooftop game at Wrigley
20. Crowd surf at a concert
21. Stand atop the Empire State Building
22. Get a tattoo
23. Blow something up
24. Shave my head
25. Stay up all night and watch the sunrise
26. Visit Central Park
27. See the Milky Way
28. Make a Thanksgiving Day turkey
29. Moon someone
30. Visit the Hockey Hall of Fame
31. Touch the Stanley Cup
32. See the Hover Dam
33. Attend a private event, small venue, concert with a major band
34. Play pond hockey
35. Sit in the bleachers at a Cubs game
36. See each of Chicago's professional sports teams play
37. See all the major Chicago museums
38. Go on the Miller Brewery tour
39. Try sushi
40. Eat frog legs
41. Go to a Bears vs. Green Bay game
42. Swim in the ocean
43. Touch the bean in Grant Park
44. See a Broadway show
45. Spend the night downtown Chicago
46. Ice skate downtown Chicago
47. Eat alligator
48. Make someone breakfast
49. Try beignets.
50. Visit Brookfield Zoo
51. Eat a burrito after 2 am at LaBamba
52. Eat at a Golden Nugget Pancake House in the city at 4am after bars close
53. Stay at a bed and breakfast
54. Attend Midget Madness at Casey's bar in Pittsburgh
55. Eat at Primanti Brothers
56. Go to a dueling piano bar
57. Go whitewater rafting
58. Tailgate at a sporting event
59. Go to a Jimmy Buffet concert and party in the parking lot
60. Watch a lunar eclipse
61. See a comet
62. Watch a solar eclipse
63. Help build a Habitat for Humanity house
64. Do a charity walk
65. Try raw oysters
66. Drink at a dive bar (done this one a bunch!)
67. Participate in a bar crawl
68. Order room service
69. Eat a deep fried Twinkie
70. Get my picture in the paper
71. Go to a drive in movie
72. Go to a Renaissance Fair
73. Tie a cherry stem in a knot with my tongue
74. Tour a winery / vineyard
75. See a band perform at The House of Blues (done both Chicago and New Orleans)
76. Go to Taste of Chicago
77. Drive down the coastal highway in Northern California to Carmel
78. Tour the Winchester Mystery House
79. Fall asleep in a hammock 
80. Go paintballing
81. Visit Alcatraz 
82. Check out a "Mystery Spot"