Picking Up the Pace

I ran yesterday. For the first time in years, I ran. Of my own free will! I wasn't being chased, I wasn't trying to catch a bus, and I didn't lose a bet. I just wanted to! Who am I right now?

I remember all those years in school when the P.E. teachers required us to run a mile every spring. It was my least favorite day of the year. As I got older, the more difficult it became to continue running. By middle school I was just walking the entire way and finishing last. In high school, when I was on the dance team, our warm-up was to jog 20 laps around the gym. No walking allowed. I loathed it! I started showing up late to practice to skip the warm-ups. During college, I took an aerobics class and one day we had to race. Guess who came in last? If you guessed me... well, duh.

There has never been a time in my life where I can remember wanting to run, let alone enjoying it. I don't know what came over me! I was out for an afternoon walk, the sun was shining, my iPod was playing Celine Dion (don't judge me), and there was an amazing breeze. The feeling came on suddenly and I thought to myself 'What if I ran for 30 seconds? Just to test it out'. My initial reaction was that someone had taken over my mind and I was having some temporary insanity but the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. Why not? If I really hated it, I'd only have to do 30 seconds. All I had to do was try.

So I tried. And you know what? I didn't hate it! I even did two more 30 second sprints after that. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to start running for the entirety of my workouts but this is a great starting point! This means that I AM making progress and taking this first step towards moving up a notch is incredible. If I can keep pressing onward, at some point I will want to run for a whole workout. I bet I'll even start to like it. This is something I finally feel capable of. Crazy things are happening and I'm totally into it!