Hitting an age milestone

A couple of weeks ago, I turned 30 (48.28 to those of you on the metric system or 210 in dog years). Turning 30 marks the biggest milestone to date and the best opportunity to reflect on where I am, where I want to be and how I'll get there.

I do a lot of reflecting in my life. As a first-born child, I'm nostalgic (hyper nostalgic, really) by nature. My favorite holiday is New Years because it gives me a chance to reflect on the past year and change whatever it is that I don't like and continue what I do like.

For a lot of people, hitting an age milestone is a wake-up call. It's a negative because you're not as far along as you thought you would be. We reflect on our personal lives, on our health, our friends and our careers.

But the more I thought about it and I thought about it a lot, the more elated that I am where I am in my life. I'll leave the personal out, but only to say that I'm very satisfied on that front as well. Career, family, friends are amazing. The health part, though, I'm very happy to talk about.

I've talked in the past about why I run and how much weight I've been able to lose as a result of hitting the roads, so I won't go back into that. But it is important because it's gotten me to a point where I'm very happy with my health.

This past weekend I ran 15 miles in just over 2 hours. That's something that I never thought I'd be able to do in my lifetime, much less run 48 miles over a two-day period or run a marathon or even a half-marathon.

Even short of the big, ridiculous runs, I'm able to walk up and down stairs without being winded and walk all day in a new city. If I play a sport, I'm able to hold my own and not feel winded 3 minutes into the game. Running and losing weight has allowed me to live my life to the level I want to live it. It's made things that used to be impossible be very possible.

Outside of playing high school soccer, I have literally never been in better shape. I don't know that it's humanly possible to be in the same shape as a high school student who runs constantly for hours, much less figuring in the typical metabolism. But short of that, I'm the healthiest I've ever been and I couldn't be happier.

Milestones are a big deal for me. Turning 30 was a big one and it's something that I'll continue to think about, especially during my long runs. My life is far from perfect and there are plenty of things that I'd like to change.

My health just isn't one of them.