9/7/2015 Run, Run as Fast as You Can

Aleathia says:

Wow.  It has been a long time since I have posted something and an even longer time since I actually fired up the computer and not my phone.  Summer has been interesting.  It has mostly been filled with sewing, sprinkled with television and gardening, and enjoying my family.  But most interestingly is that I have started running.

(crickets)

I KNOW!

I have never been a runner.  I have been the girl with the art pad or the book in the corner watching other people play sports or do what normal kids do.  It isn't that I don't like to play sports or be active, but that I have always been a bit lacking in the grace department as well as the confidence department.   This makes sports a bit awkward.

Most of the girls at work partake in running....they do half and full marathons, they run 5K's, they run the Ragnar, they get muddy at the Warrior.  I see all of the pictures and I think about the fun I am missing, about the friendships I am not building because I am sitting at home.  I feel left out.

I know that running is a strange sport.  You are the only one who can make yourself move forward, yet you can run in groups while still maintaining your own individual mountain to climb.  Running has scared me on so many levels with failure being on the top of the list...embarrassment very closely behind.  So why did I chose to start it?

My life has been littered with deaths in the last 5 years, as I have mentioned before, and most recently my step-father was killed in an accident.  Both he and my mother induced the most amount of fear in me in my life.  They made me want to hold back.  Now they are both gone and I realize that I don't have to fear them and most importantly I don't have to fear life.

I set out to use the couch to 5K app on my phone.  I thought I would try it.  If I failed at it, at least I wasn't too afraid to try.  At least I didn't give up on myself before I started like I usually do.  I completed my third run yesterday.  My legs didn't fall off.  I didn't have an asthma attack.  I didn't feel embarrassed about the way my extra weight shimmies with every foot fall.  This alone is a personal accomplishment.

I won't lie, the runner's high is pretty awesome and the way my muscles burn makes me feel more alive than anything I have done in a long time.  My goal is to run the Selfless Elf 5K in December with the rest of my ER girls.  It is hard to visualize me running it based on where I am right now, but I am going to do it.  I have to do it.  Just for me.