I love the feeling of the wind whipping in my face, the blood pulsating in my cheeks, and the outright feeling of abandon my legs get when I shift into high gear. I check the air in my lungs, holding it until I can finally push out one great exhale at the end. There’s one last leap as my oversized foot stabs at the base and then my body pulls up like a horse in the Derby, finished with the sprint.
That’s how I run. Anything more that 240 feet around the basepaths is too much for this girl.
I like sprinting. I do not like running. Long distance, that is. Even when I was a kid… give me a good 50-yard dash and I was golden. Put me on a track to complete my mile for the Presidential Physical Fitness test and I was miserable.
But somehow I find myself training for a half-marathon.
Call it a lark. Call it an adventure. Call it a new year’s resolution.
And please call it crazy.
Trying not to strain myself with a big ol’ pat on the back, I’ll admit that I excel at cheering for my friends in races, but when it comes to doing it myself… let’s just say that you’d have a better chance of finding me eating a jar of peanut butter with an expired Epipen at my side than contemplating a half-marathon.
Plum crazy.
But on one perfect Sunday last fall, with sweat from the Army Ten-Miler still fresh on their brows, my friends Hoops and Cheesus told me about the first-ever Disney Princess Half-Marathon.
I stared at them in disbelief. Maybe that runners’ high everyone talks about was still in effect for them. I showed them the tambourine in one hand and the homemade signs in the other and said that I would be there to cheer them on like the good friend that I am, but that was it.
Then when I was out of earshot, Cheesus said to Hoops, “If she were really a friend, she’d get her ass out there and run.” Touché.
They joked that maybe they could convince me to do it by saying it was like running around the bases 25,000 times. Instead of a starting gun, there could be the crack of a bat. Not a bad rationale, but it wasn’t enough to make me contemplate running 13 times the distance I had run in nearly 10 years... or ever.
What eventually did?
A mouse.
Even at 30, a trip to Disney World is a powerful motivator.
It’s been almost 4 months since I took my first steps toward a goal I never envisioned, and I never thought I’d see the day when I could run 3 miles without stopping. I never thought I’d voluntarily brave single-digit windchills to stay on course. And I never thought I’d have a legitimate reason to buy the Nike running gear I so desperately drooled over.
But here I am… exactly one month before the race… and I find that it doesn’t feel so crazy anymore.
