13.1

My partner in crime...I absolutely could not have done this without him.

Don't be fooled. I am exhausted and in pain.

The race day outfit, complete with bib number. Looks official doesn't it.

My feet were aching, my legs were shaking with fatigue, my lungs were struggling to draw in a breath, but the finish line was just around the corner. There was a man on the corner, shouting as I ran past. "It's just around the corner! You're almost there!" My body was threatening to quit, I wanted more than anything in the world to just stop running and lie down in the middle of the pavement. His words gave me hope. I had been running for the last two and a half hours and now the finish line was just around the corner.

And it was a beautiful sight. Thousands of people screaming, cheering us on, waving signs and banners, music blasting from huge speakers. I rounded the corner and there it was. The finish line. I had only .1 of a mile to go and I would accomplish something like I've never accomplished before. My best friend was right there beside me, a personal cheerleader that had stuck with me the last 5 months, encouraging me to keep running when all I wanted to do was stop. We had trained for this. At the end of every run, he would yell, "finish line training!" and we would envision the glory of it all. We would pick up the pace and sing the theme song to Rocky and lift our hands in the air, practicing for race day. And it was enough to carry me through to end. The real deal. THE finish line. More wonderful than I had imagined on those hundreds of runs leading up to it. We grabbed hands, yelled, "finish line!" and crossed it, our hands thrown into the air in the way that finishers do.
And that was it. I was on the other side. The other side of the finish line. I hadn't thought about what would happen there. Someone placed a medal around my neck and we were corralled into the "Safe Zone". People were on all sides of me, handing me water bottles (which I gulped down 2 of right away), bananas, Snickers marathon bars, veggie chips...and I ate it all! I was ravenously hungry and my legs were threatening to quit on me. 
I stood there, medal around my neck, John holding one hand and a bottle of water in the other, and I basked. Basked in the glory of all that I had accomplished. 13.1 miles in 2 hours and 48 minutes. Not even close to a qualifying time, but it was MY time. The time that it had taken me to run a half marathon. Because I had actually just run a half marathon. 
Just 5 months earlier a half mile around the park next to our apartment ate my lunch. Thinking about running a marathon was daunting, if not impossible. But I kept at it. I ran those first half miles painfully and slowly, sad indication of just how out of shape I had become. I didn't want to be an unhealthy person, it had just slowly crept up on me. The cherry vanilla cokes, the fried mozarella  sticks, sitting in front of a computer for a good part of each day, the sedentary lifestyle snuck up slowly, so slowly in fact that it tricked me into thinking I wasn't that lazy, unhealthy person that I thought I could never become. 
Now that I'm on the other side and feeling better about myself than I have in a VERY long time, I realize that running 13.1 miles is about so many things. It isn't just about fitness and cardiovascular health, I now have a whole new mindset. I am a healthy person. I am a person who sets a goal and takes the necessary and sonetimes difficult steps to achieve that goal. I am a runner. I am a person who knows what mental toughness is and can claim that for myself. I saw how a whole bunch of small steps morphed into a huge distance. 
You know what the coolest part is about all of this is? Anyone can do it!. You don't have to be in good shape. You don't have to be an athletic person. I look like a total dork running. My knees turn in and my feet kick out...trust me, it's unattractive. But I did it anyway. Anyone can make the decision to right now, walk outside and walk a half mile. That's all it takes. Just do that every day. Then you can run a half mile. You might want to throw up, lungs and legs burning, I sure did. But you keep going. You are in control of your mind and your mind can tell your body to keep going. 
Set a small goal. Every day. Then do it. That's all. Then before you know it, you have accomplished something wonderful. Something you will look back on for the rest of your life and remember it as a time that you set yourself on the road to becoming who you want to be.

 What are you waiting for?