Well, here I am. I started this blog because I’ve signed up for a marathon and want to have a journal of sorts of my journey there. I’ll admit, I had a hard time trying to figure out how I wanted to write this blog, mostly because I need to decide who I want to write ot for. Most realistically, the only people who are going to read this are going to be my sisters and parents, in which case there doesn’t have to be any sort of background info about anything. Or even a blog, because pretty much anything I’ll write here I will already have told them in a phone conversation 🙂
So I have decided that I am going to write this as though some random stranger came upon this during a web search and they are absolutely fascinating my incredible journey and exciting life. I know that is a stretch of imagination on many counts, but hey, I regularly visit a place with a Fantasyland and it’s not only at Disney World! I am writing this as a look back for myself and maybe, just maybe, as a word of encouragement for any back of the pack runner or non-runner who wants to start to know that it can be done and that there are other people just like you, sharing in the same struggles. It’s not going to be easy, and it’s really not going to be pretty, but it is going to be awesome!
Here’s my background in running. I would say it’s a love/hate relationship, but there’s no love. In high school I did choir and theatre (yes, with an “re” not “er”) and zero athletics. I joined the Navy when I was 21 and always managed to scrape by on the running PR (physical readiness) tests. Even at the pinnacle of my fitness, when I could do pushups all day and had a six pack, running was still the enemy. I struggled at the back of the pack in group runs, always falling behind until I wised up and ran at the front of the formation so I could control how fast we were going. Underhanded, I know, right? I’ve just never been a runner. I hate the feeling of not being able to breathe and that horrible tightness in my ankles and calves and in my mind I equated every single group run, no matter how short, with a Bataan Death March. So why start distance running? It seems like a really stupid choice to make, right? One word: Disney. Yes, I got sucked into the world of runDisney. I am a former Disney World cast member and have been to Disney World, Disneyland or Aulani every year since 1998. I love me my Disney. And like a proper junkie I’m looking for the next fix, and runDisney events were something Disney that I’ve never done before! So I started running again in April of 2012 after a six year break from ANY sort of physical activity. It was as painful as I expected, but I finished that one mile in 15:58, putting me under the Disney time requirement of a 16 minute mile. It was a start. Since then I’ve taken 4-5 minutes off of that per mile pace, even though I still have not been able to get the money and opportunity together to make it to a Disney half marathon. But I’ll keep plugging away and maybe, someday, the dream that I wish will come true (come one, you know I had to do it).
Poor Unfortunate Soles 