Finally A Runner

Channeling my inner FloJo

It's been a great long holiday weekend.

I ran the Sunset 5K for the second time and recorded my personal best time of 38:58.8. For the past year as I've run other races and trained intermittenly but had not seen myself as a runner until that evening.

It's not about the time.

It's not about how fast you run.

It's not about the equipment.

It's not about how others see you.

It's all about how you see yourself. And I finally see myself as a runner.

It all happened within a brief exchange at the registration table. As I checked in, the woman at the table said something to me about doing well as she got my packet. Another woman next to me looked up and said she recognized me running in the neighborhood and that she saw me at another race earlier this year and before I could blurt out my normal self-depreciating comment about not being a "real runner" or being super slow.

I didn't.

I simply replied - "yes, that's me. I'm not very good but I do run"

And just like that I am a runner. I finally see myself as a runner. Albeit a slow, quirky and heavy one but a runner nonetheless. 

How many times do we sell ourselves short of who we really are?

How many times do we compare ourselves to others? our journey to that of other people?

We must embrace our own walk.

We must accept ourselves.

I am certain that until that moment, every time I denied that I was a runner or somehow diminished the fact that I was running regularly -  it was because I had a picture of what a runner looks like in my mind and I ain't it.

I thought a runner was someone who loved to run.

I thought a runner would be running more races by now.

I thought a runner would have progressed beyond 38:58 in a timed race.

I thought a runner would have a desire to run more than a 5K.

Until then, I thought of anyone else besides me to be a runner.  I've been a runner pretty much since I completed the Couch-To-5K program last summer but only truly accepted it Friday night before my race. I smile reflecting on it now.

Guys,  this realization is huge. Perhaps there are some other areas of my life I need to "wake up" to...

Best selling author?

Accomplished strategic business consultant?

I don't know but I intend to be more aware from now on.

What about you?

What do YOU need to wake up to and acknowledge to make it so?

What This Body Needs More Of....

My two kids doing something I love - SLEEP!

So one full week into my Coach-To-5K training program for the Sunset 5K to kick off the Summer Sunset Festival in Lake in the Hills, Labor Day weekend, I've had an epiphany!

Knocking on the door of 40 years old, having spent the last year with no athletic activity that I'd love to blame on the radial nerve problem in my right arm vs. my own apathy towards my body  - this training program has shed light on something I thought I had under control.

When you exercise more - what do you need more? What does YOUR BODY crave?

For some, it's more nutrition.

Their body needs to eat more and/or better. Someone I know eats almost DOUBLE what they normally eat when they are training for a race (my daughter Emma).

Their body needs more water. The more they workout, the more they need to replenish.

For me, it's SLEEP.

What? This from the woman who intends and is pretty successful at getting at LEAST 7 hours of sleep a day.

Yeah, every run this past week revealed to me the deep need to go back to my body's wiring and get that 8 or more hours of sleep a day.

Now it will be ANOTHER post to figure out how I do that with all my roles - wife, mom to two active kids, full-time marketer/part-time village official AND entrepreneur building a new company.

But I am so glad that my relationship with my body is so much closer that I can immediately sense something I might have missed in the past. As recent past as last year.

You see the issue with my radial nerve in my right arm has brought me in closer relationship with my body.   Therapy, surgery, therapy again and one year later with little improvement has tuned me in to this miracle I walk around in everyday. And IT has spoken.

So don't be surprise if you "see" or "hear" me dozing more like the two cute kids in the photo above.

Sleep is what this body needs more of...and because I love my body and value our relationship. I'm obliging.

Do you know what your body is asking of you?

Are you in tune with your "miracle"?