Run yo ass!
Today I officially signed up for my first ever 5K race. Called “Groovin in the Grove,” it starts at my school and courses through nearby neighborhoods.
I’ve never been a runner. The height of my physical fitness was probably during my first year of high school, when I was doing tons of conditioning for gymnastics and taking swimming/fitness in gym class. Even though I was pretty built and used to lots of excercise, running the mile for gym class was always a pretty big challenge for me. I hated it, and I almost always walked at some point. Since then I’ve had my little spurts of excercise, and I’ve done most of my running on treadmills, and even then I would only run for pretty short distances.
My roommate ran her first 10K last summer, and when she told me about it I’d never thought about running that far. Somewhere over the course of the school year, I began to warm up to the idea of being a bit of a runner, and considered doing a 10K myself. I told my roommate, and we decided to run one August 30. With that being so far in the future, it’s easy to procrastinate training, so when I saw the 5K opportunity pop up I decided it would be a pretty effective way of becoming more active.
I’ve been running pretty consistently now since about February. Of course in the winter I was using the treadmill, and each time I would run I would try to marginally increase the amount of time I ran. There were setbacks here and there; I’d be too hungry, too full, too tired, etc. But the next time I’d get back on after once of those setbacks it would feel great to be back in my stride. I started to love the warmth in my leg muscles after a good workout. Now that the weather is nicer, I’ve been running outiside, which is more taxing than the treadmill. It was a bit discouraging at first, but the adjustment wasn’t quite as bad as I thought it would be, and now I get bummed when I can’t hit the pavement.
Running gives time for introspection, and has helped me realize more deeply what it means to rise to a challenge. If the high school version of me knew that I’d be running 6.2 miles at the age of 23, she’d be in disbelief. I think that’s what I like about it - it’s challenging and rewarding, while helping me stay physically fit at the same time. If I can learn succeed at something that doesn’t come naturally to me, then I can apply that knowledge to anything else I do in life.
Hope that wasn’t too corny.
