“I think I’m just gonna do it!”

When I learned to run I quickly decided I preferred to walk.  It’s just never been my thing.  So, I recently decided to train for and run a half marathon.  Make sense?  Okay… I’ll explain.

In middle school, P.E. stressed me out at my core for a multitude of reasons:  I couldn’t touch my toes because my legs grew faster than my arms (don’t worry, my arms caught up eventually).  I couldn’t catch.  I couldn’t throw.  Girls were mean.  Boys were nice and tried to help me… and that made girls meaner.  I could not run a mile in the required time (probably because I always walked about half of it).  And, since these were the things that determined our grade, my GPA was ruined – in my perfectionist opinion.  So, I got permission to write extra credit reports… FOR PE!!!  Who does that?  Yeah.  I think I’m the only person.  Sigh.

In High School, it got a little better but I still hated to run.  In college I tried to change that.  My roommate Rachel and I would get up early in the mornings to “go running” — but it was really more of a jog/WALK.  Since college, I’ve gone through spurts of trying to run more regularly but they don’t last long and I go back to working out at the gym on the elliptical machine and or riding a bike because I remember, “oh yeah… I hate to run!”

Well, the last two years I’ve been in Boston during the Boston Marathon. I watched all sorts of people run and an entire city cheer them on and I found it insanely inspiring!I called Jessica, one of my bffs, from the race the first year.  She had run a marathon not long before and I had told her, “I will never do that!”  But, watching the Boston Marathon I told her I wanted to be a runner and she told me she really thought I could be, I just needed to train.  A very busy year went by and I continued to contemplate it in the back of my mind, but it seemed so out of reach.  Then I went back to Boston and I watched the race again.  This time I was even more inspired.  I decided that my goal for the year was to learn to love to run… or at least to learn not to hate it!

Then a few weeks ago, after a workout… I came home and told Jessica, “I think I’m gonna just do it!  … Do you want to run a half marathon with me?!”  I did some research and picked one that fit into my calendar (November 8th).  Jessica recommended a training schedule and I recruited several more friends to join in.

1st of all… Who am I?
2nd of all… I actually WANT to run some days now and that is AMAZING!
3rd of all… Sometimes running still feels like a slow and painful death… and I’m still quite terrible at it…
4th of all… It’s going to get harder before it gets easier…
5th of all… I might hate myself at points… and Erin (one of the girls I roped into this) is guaranteed to hate me at some point as well…

Tonight I went for my run and my ipod was dead so I was left to my thoughts.  I thought about how similar this experience is to salvation and sanctification… And that is what I really wanted to blog about… but this is getting long so I think I’ll save it for Part 2.  See you then.  If I don’t die from running first…