A little background on me. When I was around 8 or 9 years old I was diagnosed with asthma, this lasted through my teens and then thankfully disappeared. I was never a "sporty" girl, but for some reason in my sophomore year of high school I decided to try out for the field hockey team. (This from a girl who had never played any sports, let alone even held a field hockey stick!?) I by some miracle made the junior varsity team and this is where I met my best friend Chrissy (with whom 20 years later we would run our first half marathon together). Chrissy and I bonded quickly through our lack of talents on the field and our lack of running abilities! Part of our practices was running. My asthma was partly induced by exercise, so I was a lot slower than the rest of the team. Chrissy would always stay back with me during our runs. Field hockey didn't last for us past that season, but our friendship did. This was my first experience with running and I did not enjoy it.
Fast forward to my college years. During college I majored in Sociology in 2002 with a concentration in Criminal Justice. Again just like field hockey, I out of the blue with no experience or background interest in it decided I wanted to get into the police force and eventually become a detective. (This coming from barely 5'1 me who had never held or been near a gun in her life, and was probably spooked by her own shadow!?) So just like field hockey, part of getting into the police academy was passing a physical agility test that included yup running. I had to run a mile and half in something around 14-15 minutes I think? One thing about me is when I am determined to accomplish something I put in every effort to achieve that goal. I knew I was not a strong runner and even though I didn't have asthma anymore, I was still scared whenever my breathing started to get out of control. But I was determined, so I started jogging on a regular basis. I went in to complete my test and passed every part, except the running. I think I missed it by a few seconds. But I was still determined and went back out practiced more and retook it and passed the second time. I did end up getting accepted into a local police academy, but somehow some sense got knocked into me and I no longer wanted to be a cop, I had a new adventure ahead of me... I was moving to Florida. Although the law enforcement dream did not stick, this time running did. During my training for that mile and half run, I had proved to myself that I could overcome my fears and I found out that hey this running this isn't actually half bad, but my true love for it didn't really grow until many years later.
In September of 2003 I moved to Florida. I ran a little bit here and there, but never on any sort of regular basis. In 2007 I moved in with my now husband and we lived around the corner from a park that had a decent running path. I picked running back up on a more regular basis, but was only running distances from 1-3 miles at this point. As I became a little more confident in my running over the years, I decided to sign up for my first 5k. In January 2010 I ran the Walt Disney World Up & Away Family Fun Run 5k with my husband. I don't know what my time was, but I think it was around 45 minutes or so. Later that year I became pregnant. I ran a little bit through the beginning of my pregnancy, but not too much towards the end. After I had Max in August of 2011 I started to slowly get back into running. I even bought a jogging stroller to bring Max with me on my runs! Yeah, have you ever tried running with a jogging stroller?! I have so much respect and admiration for anyone who can do that! In 2012 I started to run more frequently. Chrissy had also joined me at this time, it was a good way to see each other more and exercise at the same time. The more I ran the more confident I became and on March 19, 2013 I announced (aka posted to Facebook!) that I was setting a goal of running a half marathon. Chrissy decided to join me on this adventure. So the 2 girls who could barely run a mile in our field hockey days were going to accomplish something their 15 year old selves would have never believed they could do! Up until this point I hadn't run more than 4 miles. Thanks to my posting on Facebook I can look back and see that where I had posted in July of 2013 that I ran 5 miles and in October 7.5 miles. In February of 2014 Chrissy and I registered to run the Wine and Dine Half Marathon at Disney World in that upcoming November. I wrote a blog post recapping my first half marathon here.
After running this half marathon I was officially hooked! It is hard to believe that it was 12 years from when I first started running training for the police academy in 2002 to running a half marathon in 2014. I sometimes beat myself up for how slowly I have come and think about how much farther along I could be. But then I think back at how much I have accomplished in the past 4 years. Since then I have run 6 half marathons, shaving an hour and 3 minutes off my time. 18 5k's (I have even placed within my age group!), 3 10k's, a 10 miler and a full marathon. I have 2 more half marathons scheduled for this November and am planning on running another full within the year or so. This sport has taught me so much about myself and my determination and what I can accomplish if I just put my mind to it... you just need to believe.
