Early Girl

I'm a runner.

I never thought I'd say those words. 

I never ran as a young person. I hated running. It hurt. I couldn't breathe. I could never find my pace and I always felt like Frankenstein, lurching along behind everyone else in gym class. Arms flailing, gasping, pain from the stitch in my side.  Running was ugly to me and I hated it. Over the years, I've thought about it. I have friends who run. They run marathons and half marathons and 10Ks and 5Ks and they enjoy it. Or at least that's what it looks like to me. So in the past few years I've been thinking about running a lot. I looked up several "Couch Potato to 5K" programs and tried one briefly. 

Failed at it.

Gave up for a couple years, walked on the treadmill sporadically, walked with friends. But no running. I was too intimidated to try again after my first failure. But then some health issues cropped up and my docs told me I had to get active. So I made up my mind to try running again. 

I really wanted to run a 5K. 

3.1 miles. Yikes.

I started by setting my alarm clock early and now hit the treadmill before I'm even awake. I'm an early girl now.

The running came slowly. Oh-so-very-slowly.  My friends who run taught me how to breathe so I wouldn't get stitches in my side. That was HUGE. I would run for a minute and walk for two minutes, for thirty minutes each morning. I did this for a couple weeks and then flipped it. I ran for two minutes and walked for one minute. Slowly I kept lengthening my running time and shortening my walking time. Within six weeks I was able to run a mile, without walking, in about fifteen minutes.

I stayed at this distance for a little bit. It was a mental thing. I just didn't think I could run more than fifteen minutes. And I was pretty content with that distance. But something started niggling at me and told me to try adding a minute at a time. Within a week or so I was running twenty minutes. Then twenty five minutes and finally got up to thirty minutes of running. 

But that was it. I just couldn't get past that time. So one day recently I was talking to a friend about it. She runs marathons. I told her my time and distance and she looked at me and said, "If you can run that long for that distance, you can run a 5K right now." 

What?!

I scoffed at her but she was serious. And it stuck in my head. I've been thinking about that comment for a couple weeks and wanting to know if it was true.

So yesterday I got up even earlier than usual. I didn't even want to run. I had to talk myself into getting on the treadmill thinking I would just walk and not run. But once I warmed up a bit I started running. And kept running. I talked myself through the run in five minute increments. "Just five more minutes. That's all you have to do. Just five. You can do it." And my legs kept going.

I felt good at the thirty minute mark and decided to go for it. I didn't want to quit. Not that day. That day was meant to be.

On August, 20, 2019 I ran my first 5K.

And I cried.

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I saw an inspirational quote about working out on FB a few weeks ago and have been repeating it while I run. Maybe it will encourage someone else.

"I never regret it when I do it. I always regret it when I don't."