How do you know you are a runner?

Many people who I spend the majority of my time with now did not know me two years ago. I moved to a new town and have actively sought out new friendships and have built a very different life for myself in so many ways. I lived the first 45 years of my life as an obese person. I was usually one of, if not the, largest people in the room. I had come to a place of peace with that and a lot of it was that I’d use words that society deemed euphemistic and acceptable. Big, thick, solid, curvy. Yeah…rolls of fat have curves, but I don’t think that is what men mean when they say they love a curvy woman. And when photos were taken I was always clear to have them done from the chest up, or, since I am close to 6 feet tall, I could always assign myself a spot in the back and still be visible for the photo…a big floating head. 

But then a friend came over with her daughter at an Open House my husband and I were hosting. I remember getting up that morning. I remember thinking how festive I looked in my red sweater. The friend asked her daughter to take a photo and I used my hand to show her to take it from the chest up and she said she did. But a few hours later my friend posted it to Facebook and reality was staring me in the face. I wasn’t big. I wasn’t thick. I wasn’t solid. I wasn’t curvy. I was morbidly obese and weeks away from being 46. It was now or never…and I went with now. I spent the rest of that night crying in my bed. I sniffled through the next day, too. Monday I saw my doctor and told her I was absolutely ready for some massive change. I found a nutritionist, therapist and physiologist to work with. I learned how to eat right, how to really understand my emotions and their link to eating. 

I began to unlearn all the horrible eating habits that had been foisted on me as a child, served food that was too much for a grown man but rewarded with dessert if I cleaned my plate…and I learned quickly to ignore any feeling of satiety and just eat and eat and eat at meal times. I also learned that a good report card meant a hot fudge sundae. That not making first chair in band was fresh cinnamon rolls…usually half a dozen of them. Happy? Eat. Sad? Eat. Bored? Eat. Celebration? Eat! Eat! Eat!

So in the midst of learning and unlearning and relearning I also had to change other aspects. This couch potato needed an activity. At over 330 lbs the idea of running was ludicrous to me. But as I lost weight and explored other activities certain things that had been in the category of ‘absolutely not’ like the elliptical or yoga, became things I did and enjoyed. And then a friend died of cancer Aug 1 of 2013 and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I wanted to do something in her honor and another friend suggested a 5K. 

Never in one million years would I have thought that it was about to be the biggest change in my life, but it surely was. 

I used the Zen Labs free C25K program. I made only one promise to myself before I began. When she said walk, I would walk and when she said run I would run. And I did. And within a few weeks, I knew that the best and biggest change was happening in me. I looked forward to putting on my running shoes and getting out there. I did not care how I looked or that the thin, young gazelles with long blond or brunette pony tails would go past me as if I were standing still…I was going faster than I had on the couch and it felt SO GOOD! I did not let them intimidate me, I instead used them as encouragement and chased those pony tails until I just couldn’t see them around the curve in the running path.

The day I actually ran a 5K I wanted to stop and tell everyone I met about it. I was bursting with pride, happiness, accomplishment, joy and a satisfaction that I had never before known. I started doing a 5K in my neighborhood 3-4 days a week. I loved it. Loved it. LOVED IT. 

And then I fell. Not running, no, that would be an awesome story to tell.

Just tripped on a speed hump taking something to a friend. Knocked myself out cold, looked like I’d gone a few rounds in the ring and was in blazing pain when I came to and the very first thought I recall having as I felt my bone up through the skin of my shin was “OH NO! This will keep me from running!”

And in that very moment I knew it. I was a runner!