When You're Ready Come & Get It

Thanks to Miss Selena G, I've adopted this as my new running mantra.

When you're ready.  It's there.  Waiting for you.
What is?
Everything and anything you ever dreamed.

One of my favorite Mumford & Sons songs was playing.
I was just cresting a long, but gradual incline, and I could barely see my loose fists pumping, rhythmically.
Right, left, right, left.
My legs were answering, strong and powerful, in opposite rhythm.
Left, right, left, right.
I glanced at my watch.
14.41km.
My last split was a 6:47km, so I was putting on the gas a little bit, shooting for 6 minute kilometres for my last 4.
The song begins to crescendo and I can feel the smile start across my face, because this, this is perfection.
I turn the corner onto the busy highway and I know I'm on the home stretch.
My smile grows bigger as my Selena song comes on.
I'm ready and I'm pouncing on it.
I am a runner, and I AM a distance runner.

It's around noon on a Sunday and I'm just out for an 18km run.
No biggie.
Seriously.

In just a few short years, I am able to run a half marathon a month.
And also keep up with bi-weekly crossfit classes and a handful of bike rides every week.

When you're ready come and get it.
I am so loving this right now because it represents so much for me.
To me, it means that we can all be whatever we dream to be.
It is up to us, and no one else.
It's up to you to go and get it, to become it.
Triathlete?  Train for it.  Register.  Do it.
Want to be fit and healthy?  Find something.  Anything.  And go do it.  Get up and go.  And.  Do.  It.
Aspire to change careers?  Be courageous and find a way to make it happen.
It is so simple and it's all right there in front of you.

As I finished up my last kilometre, which happened to be my fastest, at 5:15, because I REALLY poured it on, I felt like at that moment in the universe, I was doing exactly what I was meant to be doing.  Running.
I realized that I probably could have held a faster pace, more consistently, but really, it was a great run, on an absolutely amazing day and I knew I had come a long way.

An 18km run isn't a huge feat for me anymore, and I need to aim higher.

And that's what I'm doing.

Goofy, you and I have date on January 11 & 12, 2014.
Bring it on.
I'm ready for it all.