Running-- My Best Frenemy

Do you run?  Or jog, walk or skip even?  If you knew me at any point in my life before 2007, you would never think of me running.  I always HATED the mandatory mile run in grade school.  I huffed and puffed my way through it, nearly passing out after the 16 minutes it took to finish it.  Of course I didn't run the whole time either.  This isn't because I was overweight or anything, it is simply because I was horribly unconditioned and out of shape.  I've always enjoyed sports that involve running/cardio (skating, skiing, football, soccer, and basketball are my favorites), but the idea of running, just running, sounded like torture to me.

Fast forward to 2007.  I was recently married and out of college (finally, fifth year senior here) and employed as a teacher at a Christian private school, teaching 9-12 grade English, with a side of Yearbook.  To say that it was one of the worst  hardest years of my life is probably an understatement.  Maybe I will go into that one day in another post.  But, needless to say, I had gained a bit of weight, not that much really, but enough that my clothes didn't fit anymore and I was unhappy with myself.  The stress of the job and everything that entailed had resulted in my stress eating.  At the beginning of 2007, my friend and I decided to make a change.  We challenged ourselves to train for a 5k run that May.  It was essentially the Couch to 5k program, although we didn't use that method since we hadn't even heard of it at the time.  We ran next to each other on treadmills at the gym, pushing ourselves to go farther.  I was amazed at how my body allowed me to go further and further with each run!  Finally, the day of our race came and we both met our goal-- to finish without walking or stopping.  Our time was abysmal- 36 minutes or something, but at the time, we were just happy to have completed our race!

I wish I can say that race sparked a love for running and I continued from then on to make running part of my forever life.  Unfortunately, I didn't stick with it (I'm not sure why) and life happened.  Eventually in early 2009, we welcomed our first daughter into the world and boy, did she turn things upside-down.  She was an exclusive nurser, so I wasn't without her much and no, nursing her did not take off all of my added weight.  So, with 2010 came a new goal: lose the baby weight-- stat!  I joined a gym and with no goal in mind, started running.  Surprisingly, it didn't take me long to run 2, 3, and 4 miles.  I remember thinking, "Wow, I've never run this far before!  I wonder how far I can go next time."  I decided to run a half marathon in May that year.  My good friend had just completed her first and since I have a very competitive nature, I wanted to see if I could finish one also.  I found one scheduled for late August in Minneapolis (Minneapolis 13.1) that I thought would be fun to run with my childhood best friend, who had been running for years but had yet to do a race.  Another friend around here wanted to get back into running around the same time, so she and I decided to run together and train for a different half marathon in September, the Air Force Half Marathon.  It was a big goal, but amazingly, I finished both races, along with a handful of 5ks and a 5-miler that year.  God blessed me by showing me that with time and practice, I could make my body do something I hadn't thought it could do: run.  I am so grateful to God for giving me the ability and strength to run.  It was a magical year-- my fastest 5k to date (please note that "fast" is not as important to me as "far") was 28:19 and it came the day before I discovered I was pregnant with baby girl #2.  She's always been a little firecracker. :)

After she was born mid-2011, I thought I would get back to running sooner than I actually did-- the start of 2012.  However, I hit the ground running hard and completed my first half last year the first weekend in May (Cincinnati Flying Pig).  All things considered (running 0 to 13 miles in 5 months, tons of hills, etc), it went well!  My New Year's Resolution last year was to complete 2 halves and a full marathon--my first-- before year's end!  I was on track to do it when I hit a snag.  One day towards the end of summer, I was in a rush getting into my car and somehow slammed my door on my pinky toe.  It took about 10 days to heal, but on my first run back, I tweaked my right knee.  After that, every run was a gamble-- would I make an injury worse or cause a new one?  By the time my second half marathon rolled around, I was feeling decently and I wanted to PR my time.  The Erie Presque Isle half was awesome!  The weather, fans, scenery, flat course, race size, water breaks-- everything was ideal.  It was my best race yet with my time being 2:10:09!  I was ecstatic when I crossed that finish line... until I tried to walk.  My knees hurt so badly, I'm sure I looked beyond arthritic as I hobbled around.  But there was no time for crying, the marathon was upon me.

One month later, armed with a ball of nerves, 6 GUs, Jelly Belly sports beans and my running friend, Libby, I ran my first (and possibly only) marathon, the Nationwide Columbus Marathon.  It was one of the worst  hardest days of my life.  I hit my wall at 17.5 miles and never recovered.  Libby was still feeling good, so she left me then and actually ran the last half faster than the first (props, girl!)  The only thing that kept me going was God, who strengthened me as I prayed to Him for protection and thanked Him for keeping my injuries at bay.  Amazingly, I did not stop for anything but water stations and came into the finish, blurry-eyed and all, just 29 seconds under my realistic goal of 5:00:00.  For this girl who could *hardly* run a mile for so long, it was nothing short of a miracle.

Two weeks off helped to heal my screaming muscles and aching joints, but I had one last goal in mind for the year: to complete the local Thanksgiving Turkey Trot 5 Miler.  I wanted to beat my last time, the one I had while newly pregnant with baby #2.  It was tougher than I hoped, but my time was 48:59, a second better than I had hoped.  Funny how that worked.

So, here we are, February of 2013, and I think I have maybe run 3 times this year.  As much as running helped relieve stress and steam, it broke me down too.  I got a little burnt out, to be honest.  Last year was a lot.  I was gone a lot.  Mark had to keep the kids so I could run a lot.  My life sort of revolved around my running schedule and I don't feel like doing that again for a while.  But when I don't have something to train for, I find reasons not to run at all and that isn't what I want either.  I need to find a balance before I lose all of the endurance and motivation I spent so much time building.  Does anyone have any tips to help make running fun again?  Or will running always be my best frenemy?