June 24, 2010

52cents



Cat and I went running last night for our last long run before Sunday, aka 1/2 Marathon day, aka death. We ended up doing a very strong 7 miles. After the run, I admittedly had a slight mental freak-out that she unfortunately had to witness. 13.1 miles is a lot. And because I've never run that before, and I already have issues with "worrying the run," I'm worried about Sunday. A lot.

Cat and I talked through our horrible anxieties about the upcoming race on our way to get our ice cream reward. While sitting on the trunk of her car, we decided we were going to do another 1/2 marathon this fall together. Even though minutes earlier we had both been hot messes of stress about this race on Sunday, we still wanted to run more of them. That made me smile so much, because I realized the anxiety and the stress and the freak-outs were normal and expected, but that the desire to keep going was not.

That moment sitting on her car I realized something: we're runners. And on Sunday, we're going to do 13.1 because we can and because we want to. We both have that in us, and no one can ever take that away. I'm so lucky to have her in my life, because while she'll always be there when I mentally fall apart before a race, more importantly she'll also be there when I cross the finish line. Friends like that are few and far between, and I know that if we cross that finish line together, or miles apart, we'll both be the other's cheerleader for the entire 13.1 miles. If that isn't the perfect friendship, I don't know what is.
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Welcome to Head Over Heels!

Like many 20-something women, I woke up one morning exasperated. It seemed like every day I would find a new passion, a new dream, and get excited about yet another project, just to find that they would all crash and burn. I wanted something that I could control and that would be all mine.

Because our 20s are a time of exploration and discovery, it's very hard to find that path that directs us exactly to our dreams, especially because our dreams have the habit of evolving overnight. I had worn myself into a tizzy of exhaustion, disappointment, and an overwhelming sense of having no control over my own life. And that's when I went for that first run.

Two minutes later, I arrived back at my apartment steps, panting. As long and as torturous as those two minutes felt, they also gave me a sense of liberation, a feeling that had been severely lacking in my life. The next day, pathetically still sore, I again put on my sneakers. Three minutes, yes! This routine was repeated daily throughout the summer and now, I'm a half-marathoner! My ultimate goal, a marathon, still looms in the distant future, but the even bigger goal is one I can actively work on every day: learning to gain control over my own life and learning to fall in love with myself one step at a time.