Running Thirteen

Posted on | February 20, 2013 | 16 Comments

Have I mentioned that I’m running a half marathon? Only a billion times? Because guess what… I’m running a half marathon on Sunday morning with a start time of 6:03 am.

A half marathon.  Thirteen (point one) miles.

Guys, if you’d told me six months ago that I’d be preparing to drive six hours south to run 13.1 miles in 65+ degree weather, I would have laughed at you a little, then a lot, then probably poured another glass of wine and done a little rendition of me trying to run, complete with gasping for air, clutching my chest, and rolling around in agony.  In fact, I was in such bad shape last July that when I went to run with my sister at the beach, I had to stop after less than a mile and take a pill for my heart.

A pill.

For my heart.

At thirty-four years old.

That’s some seriously shoddy shape right there.

And yet, last night, I began laying out the clothes and items I would pack to carry with me on the final leg of the journey I started back in October when Jana called and said “Hey, wanna run a half marathon with me to raise money for Ronald McDonald House?”

I tallied up the miles I’ve run since that day (217.2) and the number of times I’ve gotten up out of my chair or up off the sofa and laced up my shoes (57).  I have lost exactly no pounds.  I have lost exactly 1 inch.  But you know what? I can run a 5k without stopping to walk.  I finished a 15k with some nasty hills.  I ran a 12k with a bad hamstring.

On Sunday morning, I will gather with a zillion other people in the parking lot of Epcot with my tennis shoes laced, my fuel belt velcroed, and my smile only slightly wavering and when those fireworks explode into the sky I will run 13.1 miles with a bounce in my step that I didn’t have this time last year.

In the past five months, I have become more confident… my back a little straighter, my head held higher.  I have become more and more proud of my body and it’s ability to do things, to run miles, I never thought I could do.  I have realized that I am as strong as I never thought I was… I am a superhero… a single mom, an attorney, and a runner.  I’m getting it done, one day at a time, one mile at a time… one smile after another.  This running, this new ability I have found within myself, is 100% mine.  I’m not the fastest.  I don’t run with the greatest form.  But I’m logging those miles all by myself.

So when my feet cross that finish line at Epcot, they’re not doing it for or because of my ex, for or because of my son, or for or because of anyone else in the whole wide world other than me.  They’re doing it for me.  Just for me.

And honestly?

I couldn’t be more proud of myself.

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