I am..

I am a daughter. I am a blonde. I am a sister. I am a wife. I am a nurse. I am a mother. I am a niece, a cousin, a granddaughter. The newest thing that I am coming to grips with is that I may, just may be a runner.  As you know, I started running 9 weeks ago. 9 weeks ago, it was a struggle for me to run for longer than 90 seconds without getting discouraged.  Today, I ran for 48 minutes. It was a terrible run, I was doubting myself the entire run, but I kept telling myself I had to run at least 3.1 miles. I ended up running 4 miles. I keep knocking myself down, thinking I am not good enough, fast enough, strong enough. That I am not enough being me.  After the run, I talked with an experienced runner, who also is the head of the running club I run with on Saturdays (or on the Saturdays I can run). He didn't meet me the first time I ran, but he made it a point to say hello to me today. I had a heart to heart about him about what my goals were for running. He said something that struck me, and stuck with me..."the thing about running is that it is you against you." You know what, he is right. It is about me. It is about my fears of failure (come on I have been running for 9 weeks, you would think I would be at least happy with that), of not finishing something I have started (again, I have commitment issues). It is about all those people who don't think I can do this. More importantly, it is about me. This is bigger than me. This is about how I feel about myself.  After talking with Roger, he was telling me about other local runs that I am going to do. He also told me that I should just increase my mileage weekly, and while I am not built to win races, I am built to finish them, if I let myself believe that I can.
So, today, I am going to let myself start to believe that I am a runner. That I can do this. That in less than 2 weeks I will finish my first 5 K and the following week I will be running 5 miles every time I run. I can do this. I will do this. Hopefully you will be there to cheer me on. I promise, I am going to do everything I can to believe in myself, and hopefully you will too. Wait until you hear what races I have in store for me!