Somewhere off of the interstate, just past Columbus, Ohio, I made either the smartest, or dumbest, commitment in years.

I pulled up the official website, shared my information, whipped out my credit card and pulled the trigger.

After refusing to pay the extra fee for insurance, I was in.

There’s no backing out. I won’t get my money back if I flake out.

It’s all or nothing.

Thirty minutes prior, before reaching the city’s skyline, a woman driving about 200 yards in front of my car floated from the centerline to the shoulder of the right lane.

While a divider in the road was ahead, the car kept inching to the right.

I yelled to the woman to swerve back in, but it’s hard to hear someone when the windows are up.

The car almost squarely slammed into the concrete divider at 70 mph, making a sound like a boulder dropped off of a 20-story building.

A tire flew off into the void, and the car spun backwards across two lanes, stopping before the grass on the shoulder.

In the five seconds this all took place, I swerved around some debris and pulled over in front of the car.

Another car parked in front of me to help, and a Jeep stopped behind the damaged vehicle to block incoming traffic.

The woman, probably in her 50s, was dazed from the airbag, and the car began to leak oil and smoke. The glass was almost completely shattered on the windshield, but she was coherent and would be OK.

Thankfully, the man who parked ahead of the wreck was a volunteer emergency medical technician and was able to correctly go through the steps to help the woman before the ambulance and firetruck showed up.

After speaking with police, I was back on my way to visit my family in New York.

I believe that there are a few times in every person’s life when we are reminded of our own mortality, the fine line between life and death.

Those times when you realize you need to check some more items off of your bucket list while you have the chance.

I felt that four weeks ago.

I don’t usually write about my personal life for the paper or post anything about it on the internet.

In my columns, I will give my opinion on sports-related content but will rarely give anyone insight on my life.

In an age we can easily access information, I try to maintain a level of a privacy. I think there’s something to be said about that.

This time around, however, I will let you get a small peek into my world.

In October, I will run 13.1 miles — a half-marathon — just across the river in Louisville.

It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.

When I turned 26 back in April, I decided that I had a big year ahead of me.

My two main goals were to better myself physically and monetarily.

After coming up with a budget, I figured out a way to pay off the remainder of my student loan. In December, I will have paid off a 10-year loan in six years.

In all honesty, that was my biggest goal: Becoming (almost) debt-free.

I’ve made a lot of sacrifices over the past seven months, but it has led to smarter money moves and better discipline. I can’t wait for the liberation.

In an effort to improve my overall fitness, I started running again.

I was already lifting weights but ate like garbage and didn’t have great core or cardiovascular shape.

The first time back, I capped out at one mile, and it took almost 12 minutes to complete it.

My freshman and sophomore years of high school, I had to run a 5:30 mile for the soccer team.

Disappointed in myself, I kept working on lowering that time while also increasing the distance.

Almost one month later, I had my mile time down by almost five minutes.

It was around that time that I decided I wanted to try and achieve something big, really set the bar higher than I ever have before.

If you can’t tell at first glance, I am not a natural runner.

Back in high school, I decided to ditch soccer and give cross-country a try in the fall of my junior year. I didn’t have a passion for football and figured soccer would get me in great shape for tennis — my No. 1 sport — in the spring.

The first practice of cross-country, I ate it hard on a trail a few streets down from my high school. I needed to go to the doctor and get wood chips taken out of my knees. I still have scars in those spots to this day.

Throughout the course of the cross-country season, I started dropping weight and times. My fastest time was somewhere around 18 minutes, 20 seconds.

Above everything else, I learned the importance of mental toughness and discipline.

One of my favorite books, “Into The Wild,” has a quote that summarizes how I felt best.

“It’s not always necessary to be strong but to feel strong.”

Running helped me stay focused on what was most important to me at the time, and I hope that it will serve that purpose again.

I’m an extremely competitive person. I set big and new goals for myself all of the time. I find that complacency leads to a boring lifestyle.

I expect to crush my first half-marathon.

I’m coming up with times for goals. Right now, I want to do it in under two hours.

The furthest I’ve ran, so far, is six miles in just under a mile.

On Sunday night, I buzzed all of my hair off. The next day, I started training.

Instead of boring you with the fine details, I plan on writing around five total columns. I’m on a 12-week program, so I will write a column every three to four weeks before one final column after the race is done. The articles will run on Fridays.

In all honesty, I was unsure whether or not I wanted to write this column.

I’ve taken this column on and off the daily sports budget about six different times, wondering whether or not it was worth putting together.

This column will hold me accountable for my goals and hopefully inspire some of you readers to push yourself in some aspect of your life.

If you see me running around Seymour or Brownstown, give me a wave.

Please don’t honk, though, or I might not make it to race day.