Run for Your Life

When I began writing this blog, I felt defined by running, and, newly, by being a Mom.
(It was over 7 years ago that I started this blog - which is incredible that I've stuck to any one thing for that long!)

Y'know, you can't really know what will happen in your life.
At 20, you think you have it figured out.  Your life is planned and plotted, and it will go just as such.
We have these ideas of how we'd like it to go, but it is not going to go that way, darling, I assure you.
Your life will be beautiful, though.

Muddling through the disparity of what we think, and what is, is like the human common denominator.  Everyone sorts through this in their own way, and for me, it has always been running.

Running is, and always will be, my happy place.  The time I spend with myself.  The moments I have found the most clarity.  The lyrics I've heard that have brought me to tears, or to a good hard sprint.
I feel like running has been the railroad tracks that keep me from careening off into the abyss.  And lemme' tell 'ya, most people would agree that I am a bit of a flaming hot mess, so this is a lot of load for simple ol' running to bear!

For a long. long time I was always training.  I would do a race, or two or sometimes 5 or 6, and my year would be planned, based on racing.  I would spend months training, always with long runs on Sunday mornings.  Carb loading on Saturday night was one of my favorite things in the whole world.  Such good memories of carbs...

Only running wasn't good for me, though.  I do not have a naturally slender body, which means my heaveier bod was hitting the pavement, literally, with each step, and I incurred injuries.  There have been several, generally minor and requiring a short jaunt in physio, but then I'd be back to the streets, sometimes with a slightly different gait.  I will always be a runner.  I feel strongly that it's something of a life skill.  I am so excited to share this gift with my kids!  Running keeps me healthy and fit, doesn't take much time, and doesn't require much equipment or space.  It's also super for mental health.  I have spent a few hours in a psychologists office, but I've spent many more hours running, and both have had their benefit in helping me find my way through this life.

During the training for my last big race, the goofy race,  I added weight training, and a fair amount of it, and I was not only able to more easily endure the long runs, but I had speedy recoveries, too.  I realize that lifting weights has a ton of health benefits, but I think that it's still a fairly new notion for a lot of the crowd.  What I can tell you, from experience, is that in all my years of running, which is 22 years, to be exact, I have never maintained my weight with such ease, as while I have been a lifter.  And that is just the honest truth.  More muscle = more calorie burning.  It's science, yo.

Where does running fit into saving my life?  Well, when I was 15, our family got a puppy.  A lab retriever cross.  Belle.  Over the first summer she lived with us, it became quickly apparent that she was going to require a LOT of exercise.  Being a lazy teenager, I decided to start running with her, because we could cover the same distance, with much less time.  It was also that summer that I started to deal with a past trauma that my brain had packaged up, tightly, as a form of self protection.  At first, I remembered it like I was in a cloud, above, and then, figured out that I was, in fact, watching myself.  I also learned that when I was younger, and gaining weight at an alarming rate, that in the simplistic mind of a child, making your appearance less appealing is another form of self protection.  Much of this came to light during that summer and for a few years following.  I ran through it all, and I leaned heavily on that big golden dog, as well.

I've laced up my shoes to help myself deal with breakups, with deaths, with the feelings that have come along with my physique changing (trust me, this is a whole bag I had no idea I'd opened!) and with the big emotions I have felt as a Mom, I have always known that I will be sharper, after 5km.

I have never found myself in the deep, dark places that I know many are familiar with, however I feel like I can safely say that I could easily have ended up there.  I have no idea what sorts of divine intervention have been in place for me, but someone, somewhere had me consider that running the dog would be just faster than walking, and the rest is some serious history!

I don't think it's a coincidence that I was born on the very day that the Canadian hero, Terry Fox, passed away.