Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Runners Gonna Run

I'm going to need you to cue up the theme from Rocky while you read this. Got it?  Good.

Last Saturday, we strapped on our sneakers and hit the pavement for a 5K.  And we ran.  RAN.  Let me just go ahead and tell you that I don't do that.  Don't.  Like, eva. But I did it on Saturday.

And I did it largely (Ok, let's try almost completely) because my sister was right beside me the whole way telling me that we could do it.  Crazy thing: we could.  And did.  Nothing stopped us.

Not the cold.
Who needs to feel their fingers? 

Not the fact that I needed to pee about a quarter mile in.
Really, every tree and overgrown area looked like prime real estate to me. 

Not even all those voices in our own minds telling us to stop, that we couldn't, that it was OK if we didn't.
Because, really, it would have been OK if we didn't.  

But we did.

There is no part of me that liked running.  There is no part of me that thinks running is all that much fun or a good time or something I just can't do without.  But, I will tell you this: when I got to that finish line, and I knew that I had not stopped running from the time I had started until I had reached 3.1 miles, it was the best feeling ever.

Like, eva.

My legs may have felt like they could no longer support my body weight, and I may have had a strong urge to hurl, but I was also enveloped with such euphoria that it's pretty hard to put it into words.  I felt so good.  And I don't think that word is too simple to use here.  It. Felt. Good.

I grinned all day.  That is, until that euphoria wore off and the tops of my legs began to hurt so badly I could barely bend them to sit down.  Getting in and out of the car that night was quite the challenge and the way I backed into all my evening's seating choices looked much like it did when I was extremely pregnant.

But that's how it goes.  Or so I've been told.  Apparently, the way to avoid feeling like that is to run more.  More, they say!  More often.  Longer distances.  More.

Meh, we'll see.

I think I'll give it a go.  Why not?  It seems I've already shown that I can.

-Jess


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