A few days ago Andy told me we were doing a Half Marathon. Yes, he TOLD me. Apparently my husband thinks I truly enjoy torturing myself.
After I stopped arguing with him, I took a few days to think about it. And I reconsidered it … a bit. I decided that it wouldn’t be horrible to at least do the training part. Maybe I won’t sign up for an actual half marathon race, but maybe I can start running again. So today, I ran two miles. Two miles in 25 sweat-drenched minutes. Two miles of why-did-I-ever-stop-running questions racing through my head.
A few years ago, I was in the best shape of my life. I was coming off of a break up, eating better, and spending a lot of time in the gym on treadmills and ellipticals. At that time, I had set myself a goal to run 365 miles in a year. A mile a day.
It wasn’t bad at all. I would run two, three, sometimes four miles at a time to “bank” miles. So when I went away for vacation, I wouldn’t have to find time to run if I couldn’t. And I hit my goal, all well within my time limit.
Running gave me more than I thought it would. It was a personal therapy session every day where I could tune out all the horrible thoughts in my head. It let me focus on the task at hand. In turn, I got a stronger body and mind.
But after that year, I stopped. I let life get in the way. I let the typical “when you get comfortable in a relationship you get fat” story come true. I gave up on myself when I should have reminded myself to stay strong, give myself my needed therapy runs and stop eating like I was still running every day.
So I’m hoping if I force myself to “train” for this magical half marathon, that maybe I can feel better about myself – both mentally and physically. So today was day one. Yikes.