Me? A 50-Something (YIKES!) Ultra Runner?!?!?

Day 3 of the August Healthy Living / Fitness Blogger Writing Challenge put on by The Fitness Cheerleader has me writing about:

Where would you like to be in 10 years?

This is an extremely tough topic for me to address, because I have never been much of a forward-thinker.  I leave that to my Hubby, the man who has at least a five-year plan for races at any given point.  Ask him where he sees himself in 10 years and he probably has a 50th anniversary of the XYZ race on his radar that he wants to do.  I admire his ability to think ahead, even while at the same time I seem incapable of doing it. Maybe that is why we fit together so well - I fill the need for spontaneity while he plans.

I wasn't always this way.  I actually was quite the planner through my school years (which went up through grad school).  Somehow, though, school made it easier for me to define and understand who I was and what I needed to do.  So, throughout those years, while studying German, I had life pretty well planned out - here for undergrad, here for grad school, here, here, here, .... and here for study abroad.  But once out on my own, I lost my sense of where life should take me - perhaps a case of too much freedom?  Having kids, I find I am now just starting to again plan a bit more.  Now, after all, I have their school schedules to help define my life.  I know, all pathetic and sad and maudlin and whiny, and painfully veering off topic.  So, where do I see myself in a decade.....

In ten years, my kids will be 14 and 17 years old, respectively.  I imagine myself dealing with all the
c-r-a-p that comes with the teen years, as well as the joys of following them along on the journey of their interests, which I hope will include a sport or some other extracurricular activity they enjoy.  I will be looking at sending my firstborn off to college and all the angst that comes with that as well.  I also imagine I will be playing chauffeur, errand-runner, and all-around support crew for my aging parents.  (Or, more likely, I will be planning a vacation to somehow lob on to their latest travel adventure.)

I see myself finally working again full-time, after many years off - jetting around the world for Runner's World Magazine, Running Times  or some other running or travel-related rag, writing articles doing some kind of communications job for an employer I like and respect.

As for Hubby and myself, I keep thinking back to an article I read on Tom Held's blog Off the Couch a while back, "Double endurance: couple celebrates 50th wedding anniversary with 50K trail run," on the JSOnline. Strangely, having never run an ultra in my life, I kind of see myself following in those footsteps: getting stronger the longer I run, but still running for fun.  Signing up for crazy distance races with my Hubby and enjoying the places our eccentric hobby takes us, both as a couple and as a family.  I don't have any specific running goals beyond that.  If I could get a bit faster, and my age and speed would somehow, someday intersect, then I would like to try to run Boston one day.  Beyond that, I am open to whatever the universe and my own whims hand me.

How about you?  Any long-term plans?  Do you plan races and runs years out like Hubby? Or are you more of a spur-of-the-moment type of runner?