Welcome back everyone. It has been a long time since my last post, plus the fact that I wrote this post back in December and I guess I forgot to hit publish. To say I am surprised would be a lie. Between my last post and today I have run a 15k and a Marathon as well as served at a statewide youth conference and celebrated Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year and Groundhogs day. Time flies when you have scheduled events every weekend and before you know it things like blogs get pushed back. So here is my attempt..
We are going to continue my little series of introducing myself.
Today we will talk about being an accidental runner. My husband thinks that it is funny that I call myself that. I think that it makes perfect sense because I never in my life would have considered myself a runner or even considered running. But here I am 40 years old having run a half marathon this past May (2022) and a official Marathoner as of November 13, 2022. And I totally got here accidentally.
I cannot tell you the precise date or year that I started running other than to say it was about 6 years ago. So, 2016 give or take. In 2014 we started to make some better choices for health so it was right on schedule that physical fitness would come into play at some point.
Lee started running before me. I want to say his first 5k was in September of 2015 I could be way, way off. But somewhere in there I decided I would give it a try as well. I was not a fan. I had bad shoes and honestly didn’t stick with it. I began riding my bike a little more and then winter came so all of that stopped. I continued to have this on again off again relationship with running until early summer or maybe late spring 2017.
I overheard a couple of ladies at my church talking about doing a 5k race in August of that year. It was one of the ones with all the inflatable obstacles and honestly it kinda sounded fun. So, I asked if I could join in on the fun and they said absolutely. So, I did it. I signed up for my first 5k. I did not know how to train or get ready so I would just go out and run and try to add miles. I was honestly a hot mess. BUT, I finished and I got a medal and felt really accomplished.
From there I started running more. There were a few ladies in the church that would all go to do races together so we began to build community and friendships which I am all about. Later that same year, I did my next 5k, the Chicago Hot Chocolate Run. It really was an excuse for a weekend away with the girls and the race was just a part of it. But, something changed that year. That race was when I really started to like what I was doing.
2018 – 2019 I did a few more races and upped my game to a 15k at the Hot Chocolate. That is when I thought to myself. I am going to do a half marathon before I turn 40. Well, that did not happen due to good old 2020. I signed up for a few virtual runs and did those but in 2020 I began to really notice pain in my left hip. And, if I am truly, truly honest I had noticed this pain before that even. So, I took the slow down to have it checked out and found that I had a tear in my hip and that if I wanted to run without pain again I needed to get it fixed.
March 2021 I had my surgery. It went well and everything was fixed but Honestly, I didn’t have the courage to get back out and run basically for an entire year. I will save the story of 2021 for another blog.
In March 2022 I signed up for a run training group with my husband. Have I mentioned that community is everything and having a group to run and train with was exactly what I needed to get back into the game. It was fun to meet people and encourage and help each other through tough runs and cheer them on during the good ones. It was amazing to see Lee flourish and become a stronger faster runner and for myself to have a group that was my same pace and helped me not feel self conscious about being a tad slow. Because of all of this I accomplished my goal of a half marathon. It was after I turned 40 but I didn’t care I got it done.
After the half marathon I had to make a choice on if I wanted to just go for the big goal. The full 26.2 miles. It was something that I had toyed with over the years and since I turned 40 in March and I wanted to really solidify 2022 as a “come back year” So in July 2022 I clicked the register now button for the Madison Marathon in November of 2022 and I didn’t look back. The journey to accomplishing that goal was life changing in so many ways and I have a blog about all of that coming soon. So, I guess I have to say I am technically a runner now but, I will say this. I got here by accident and I am glad I am here.
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