Running:
If you asked me two years ago how many miles I ever thought I could run I would have told you maybe two but that would be stretching it. I've never been a runner.. in fact I hated running. It served as a punishment growing up playing on basketball and volleyball teams. I found running to be a torcher tool that just so happened to keep me in shape for the sports I actually cared about. I firmly believed that any one who called themselves a runner was clinically insane and should probably be institutionalized. Now that I've degraded the sport that I now call my own I see fit to explain why it is now a part of me.
I took a few months off and kept my highest mileage at nine just to keep my body in training shape before actually beginning training. My official training started in May. As I looked over my schedule the first number I saw was 22, the furthest I would have to run before the actual 26.2 miles. I'm almost positive my heart skipped a beat as it sunk to the floor. My eyes wide and scared, I taped the sheet of paper with the next 6 months completely planned out on my closet door, tied my running shoes, put my head phones in, pushed play, looked at day one and told myself "You can and you will. You deserve to earn this for yourself.", and then headed out the door on my first 3 miles of the next six months of training.
When it comes to training for anything there comes sacrifices. You have to make the time for what's important to you. In this case, running has been the third most important thing in my life next to my faith and family/friends. You have to be willing to give up some thing's, especially the idea of dating. You have to rearrange your life with your training schedule in mind. In the last six months I've had anything and everything thrown at me at warp speed as if I was not meant to embark on this journey. I've had doubt, more doubt than I'd had in myself in a while. I cried, cried a lot over situations that took my focus off what has been important to me for the last two years. I even lost sight of what I was actually trying to accomplish, I would even go as far to say that I felt outside myself, like I was looking in on a person that I didn't recognize. It took one temporary situation to open my eyes again, to make me see that what's important to me is what mattered. That I am not the decisions that I make. That no matter what I do, I'm still loved, and most of all still me. I became distracted more than I can count on one hand through this whole process, let people take my attention away from what makes me, me. My momentary decisions for that of just moments, I thought I was living in the moment but really I was giving into all that I said I would never be. We all fall victim to circumstances like this, I'm just willing to own up to being temporarily an idiot.
During the race I felt fantastic, all my adrenaline started pumping the minute the fireworks went off but it was seriously freezing outside. My hands blew up like balloons and I felt like my face had been frost bitten. I was lucky to have Lacey with me for the first part of the race until her half marathon was complete. (You're awesome girl) On mile 8 my knee started hurting, as if there were a knife being stabbed right in the back of it. I stopped at one of those fancy portable pots, stretched it out for maybe five seconds and then kept going. At that point I told myself listen you've come to far to stop now so suck it up, you aren't hurt. That entire mile was painful but eventually it went away. My thought is maybe I wasn't stretched enough before the race started and that was my bodies way of tell me. When I got to mile 14 I thought there was a possible chance I could legitimately die as I watched all the half marathoners turn to get to the finish line. I had to keep telling myself to just keep breathing. I pushed through that mile and kept thinking if I could just see someone I know that would help so much. I had never wanted to see a familiar face so badly.
October 19, 2014 Columbus Marathon |
With every mile I ran, every toenail I lost, all the blisters I gained, all the shoes I wore out, all the energy gels I went through, and the gallons of spark and water I drank.. I finished a race. But not just 26.2 miles.. I finished a journey I had promised myself I would complete. And I never break a promise.
Thankful.