“I run, I’m slower than a herd of turtles stampeding through peanut butter…….but I run.”- unknown
Now that I no longer had modern treadmills at my convienience, and I would be living with my aunt for the summer months, it was either pay $60 a month for a gym membership or figure out how to start running outside.
I felt like for everyone else in the world, running was more enjoyable outside than on a treadmill. For me, that was not the case. Each time I attempted to run outside, I was tempted to stop running each time I approached a light pole or a crack in the road. It became a game of “Okay Josie, run to that red car and then you can take a break”, which wasn’t exactly a good way of pushing myself. For some reason, being on a treadmill and having to run at a steady pace forced me to push myself further than I seemed to be able to when running outside.
During my first week at my Aunt’s house, I drove multiple different laps around the neighborhood to identify some sort of path that wouldn’t require stopping every block for a busy intersection. I was super lucky to have an actual walking/running path right outside our front door. This lil’ path became my new running buddy, whether or not I wanted it to.
For the next month and a half I ran a consistent 3-6 miles a week, normally one mile per run with the occasional mile and a half if I was feeling better than normal after my 8am-5pm internship.
Leading up to the race in July, I never ran more than two miles at a time without stopping. I also turned 21 and did normal 21 year old things like going to music festivals and having fun so that paused the running schedule a bit at times. I endured many difficult runs that ranged from 1-1.75 miles where I continued to have feelings of hate towards running. I was my own biggest weakness, my mental strength would diminish more and more after each tenth of a mile. I often would feel like I had only .25 miles left of my mile run for the night, only to look down at my watch and see that I had only conquered .25 of a mile and had .75 LEFT TO GO!! It was honestly so hard for me, each day was hard. But, mustering up the strength to get out and go was ultimately the hardest part each day. It would have been a heck of a lot easier to just quit.
Two weeks before the Bavarian Blast 5k, I decided I should probably try running 2 miles without stopping before I was going to expect to finish this 3.2 miles in two weeks. It was a sunny Saturday morning, and I did it! Frankly, it was actually an exhilerating run for me, I was finally able to find a teeny tiny bit of joy on the run as I pushed through each tenth of a mile one at a time until hitting the solid 2.
I felt extremely accomplished afterwords! Until the thought that I still had to run a full mile on top of what I had just done in order to finish the race. YIKES. I now would take the next week off and just actively walked each evening with a one miler on the Tuesday night before the 5k race.
Josie's Journey 