I'm a girl with big aspirations. I don't just want to live; I want to actively take part in life, co-create it, unfold it, help evolution along. I'm a Dreamer. With capital D.

Yet, I'm also a Doer. I walk the steps, acknowledge the facts and navigate between possibilities, opportunities and fallacies. Today is the closest we get to tomorrow. The future is always now. Everything happens in the present moment of reality.

What I'm trying to say is: I want to run a marathon next year. Or rather: The dreamer in me wants to run a marathon next year. The doer in me knows my knees hurt after 5 km, and that's a whole lot less than 42 km.

So what does this mean for my dream? That means taking a realistic and holistic approach to the matter, starting where I am with the abilities and the body that I have. So I've developed this timetable and these rules for the endeavor which I've been following strictly for the past week, and so far it's worked top-notch:

However, that's not all: Taking a realistic and holistic approach also means being okay with giving up.

I recently read the book Philosophy for Polar Explorers by Erling Kagge, who has been some crazy places under some crazy circumstances. One of the main points in his book was the bravery of knowing when to give up. Failure is stigmatized and so we push ourselves hard to avoid it – so hard, sometimes, that we compromise our health, our wellbeing, and even our lives. We might be considered brave for pushing ourselves beyond our limits, but it's at least as brave to listen to ourselves and our gut-feeling, and to quit in time before ruining our future.

I don't mind telling the world I'm going to run a marathon next year and then having to tell them I can't do it. I hope I'll manage, I'll do everything I can, but I'm a pragmatic idealist, and reality always comes first. No shame in that.

The thing is, my goal isn't really to run a marathon, I'm just in desperate need of a personal, meaningful project and a marathon resonates deeply with me. Instead, my goal is to eat better, feel better and sleep better, and still be able to dance for the rest of my life. If running can do that for me, great! If it can't, great! – I'll take another path then.

Super curious to see how this goes and where it will take me. Moving spurs my creativity, so apart from getting fit as fuck, I also hope to experience a stead flow of ideas and inspiration. Super curious, super duper curious. Journeys are the best.