Blogging About Jogging

Twelve years ago my roommate and I would jog energetically down Belmont Boulevard. We would carry on rousing conversations and laugh and goof off. I felt so alive. We loved to admire the quaint cottages that lined our route and speculate about what the lives of their occupants were like.

Today I found myself in the same neighborhood and barely had the strength to look at the passing scenery as I urged my very out of shape body down the sidewalk. I am training for the Music City Half Marathon. I have been officially in training for only a week and it is killing me. I was excited when I heard that we (my running group from church and I) would be running in the Hillsboro Village/Belmont area today. Last Saturday we ran the Shelby Bottoms trail and it was beautiful, but there was not much to look at besides the river and the overgrown brush. Today there was a LOT going on: people were walking and running and pushing strollers and sitting on front porches. It was sunny and almost 50 degrees. And I BARELY got through it. I did not enjoy a minute of it. Oh, I felt great afterward as I sat drinking coffee at Bongo Java with the "twenty-somethings." But I was in pain for my entire run. I only ran 3.5 miles and it baffles me to think that I will run almost 10 miles further than that on race day in late April. You may wonder, "then why do it?" And I would tell you that I want to do it to prove to myself that I CAN! I'm also a little inspired by "The Biggest Loser." Those contestants usually run a FULL marathon at the end of the season. If they can do it, I know I can do it. My friend Joel actually pushed me over the edge when I was trying to decide whether or not to commit to it. He is one of those people who can do most anything, whose attitude is "why not?!" We are going to do the half marathon together and don't even get me started on how envious I am that he gets to train in Santa Barbara, running along the beach!

Anyway, the theme that seems to be running through my life right now is that anything worth having is worth working really hard for! There is a part of me that wishes things were easier, that wishes I didn't have to have hard conversations and wrack my brain for song ideas and exercise regularly and use every ounce of discipline to stop eating junk food! But I just have to keep telling myself that they WILL get easier if I keep pushing through the hard stuff and DON'T GIVE UP!

I wonder where we're running next Saturday?!