I was never the sporty type growing up. Picked last for intramurals, crossing the finish line long after the others in the gym class fit tests. Very stereotypical nerd :) But I have always wanted to run. I would try for a week or two but it was always really hard. Hard to breathe, sore legs and I wasn't very fast. So I would give up shortly after starting. But oddly enough I was into fitness. I loved to swim and joined the gym of the local hotel where I would do some minor weights, use the machines and swim.
In University I joined the triathlon club after doing a sprint race with a coworker during the summer. It was definitely not competitive and practices were often followed by nachos and beer :) But I improved a lot over that year and ran a 5K race in 27 minutes. As always I was one of the last to cross the line and I was working hard! I didn't realize at the time that I was running in a FAST race LOL.
I decided that I wanted to run a marathon. I even signed up with a private coach. But it was hard and the coach wasn't interested in making it fun :) He wanted to get me super fit and running the best marathon I possibly could. I stopped training, using finances as an excuse. And for the next 10 years yo-yo ran. I tried it out for a few weeks or months and then found whatever excuse was handy to stop.
In April of 2011, I was coming out of the fog of undiagnosed post partum anxiety. I had a rough pregnancy and a rough year after delivering my second daughter. So I had two years of binge eating and the least amount of movement I could get away with. I couldn't run 3K without multiple walk breaks and it was HARD! But my sister had asked me to run a marathon with her in October to celebrate her 30th birthday. I walked into the brand new Running Room that just opened in my city and signed up for the marathon clinic starting the end of June.
The manager, Courtney, was so sweet and encouraging. She probably should have told me to sign up for the 5K clinic instead but she explained that the first long run would be 13km and I should be able to run 10 km before that week. EEEEK! I signed up to run a 10K in late May to hopefully keep me on track. When the day came I ran with my sister (with plentiful walk breaks) and was thrilled to cross the finish line in 1 hour and 33 minutes. But I was tired and had no idea how I would ever complete that 3 more times :(
I showed up for the first clinic night and learned very quickly that I was the least prepared of the whole group LOL. Some had run marathons before. All but two of us had run a half marathon before. That night we were running 6km and would run the same route every Tuesday for the length of the clinic. The instructor, Courtney, ran with me the whole way, including the many walk breaks I had to take. But by week 4 I could run the whole 6km without walking! And although I was using generous intervals for my long run (10 min run: 3 min walk) I was completing the distance.
I was slow but for some reason it didn't matter to me. Maybe because I was sooooo much slower than everyone else there was little pressure to try and keep up. I started leaving for my long runs an hour before the rest of the group started. They would pass me along the route, giving me a thumbs up and I would finish while they were stretching. Everyone was so encouraging and I could feel myself getting better each week.
Sometime during a three hour run I came to the realization that I was enjoying myself! I really enjoyed running, being on my own and plodding along in my own world. I was excited to run and really excited to cross such a monumental event from my bucket list. Three weeks from race day we started out on our final 32km training run. My husband dropped me off and I started. About 2 or 3 kms in I rolled my right ankle. I still have no idea what happened but it hurt and bad. I called my husband to pick me up and did a little test walk while I waited. It felt ok, so I tried some running. When he arrived, there was no swelling or bruising so I decided to keep running until it hurt.
At the 21 km mark I called him to pick me up. And by the time we arrived home I couldn't bear weight on my right foot and it was extremely swollen. And it wasn't better the next morning or the next. And by a week later I knew that the marathon was out of the question. I cried. A lot. But when race day rolled around I was surprisingly calm about it. I volunteered at the 36km water station and screamed for each and every one of my teammates in training until I was hoarse.
And I realized that it really was about the journey this time. I still haven't crossed run a marathon off my bucket list but I have discovered a run of loving that must have been buried away for 33 years. And that makes everything worthwhile.
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