in(sanity)spiration

For the past 4 weeks I have been participating in my silliest, and my least-sane antic perhaps to date.  I am becoming a runner.

As my friends all start turning the Big 3-0, I realize that the final months of my twenties are upon me.  I wouldn't say I'm unhappy with my life and what I've done so far, but I suddenly started to feel really bad about one particular aspect of my personality I don't like.  Namely, my inability to follow through on actions.  

I am the queen of starting something and then jumping ship mid-activity (as particularly noted by the area of my apartment where partially completed crafts go to die).  I guess this all sprang from my former swimming career.  I swam all through high school, and set off to swim my first year of college.  I began the training for the season, and then sustained an injury, but not a career-ending one.  Only, I made it a career-ending injury, and never even competed in a collegiate meet.  I sometimes beat myself up about this; I wonder where I would be, or where I could have gone, had I only stuck with swimming.  (Lest you fear, I don't dwell on this continually, but I do think about it often)  [Why do I think I decided to make it a career-ending injury?  That's another story for another day.]

So I wanted to commit, and follow through on something, anything in my life.  And that thing, strangely, was running.

Even as a hot-shot swimmer, running and I weren't friends.  We have a bad history.  I find it incredibly boring (and before you start going on about how running and swimming are nearly identical, there's just something about swimming that I adore).  I lack the stamina to run.  I hate sweating.  The list goes on.  

And I'm sure you're thinking: then why the heck did you pick running?  I guess the reason I picked running was, it requires very little.  At the very minimum, all you need is a decent pair of shoes.  There are countless places to run, so space isn't really an issue.  And you have to carve out time to run -- but it's only 30 minutes.  I can do 30 minutes.

The second reason why I chose running was inspiration.  It seemed like every where I looked, I had friends who became runners late in life.  Friends at church, friends from work, friends from school.  So one day, after seeing a dear friend post on Facebook that she had just completed her first 10k, I decided I could do this.  I would  do this.  If she could do it (and all of the other people I know who were doing this), so. could. I.  

So I made a plan.  Finish a 5k before I turn 30.  Easy enough, eh?

Maybe you're asking yourself why I've taken so long to share this with you?  Well, it took me a while to share it with anyone.  I'm doing this for me.  To prove to myself that I can do this.  And I didn't want to tell anyone, because I didn't want to let people down, should I not complete my goal.  But then suddenly I started sharing, and I realized how many people I had cheering me on.  So I'm sharing with you, dear readers.

I also figured, that in addition to becoming a runner (that is still up for debate), I would probably learn a heck of a lot about a heck of a lot of things other  than running.  So I've been keeping a journal.  I'll probably share some snippets every now and then from that journal, but I'm finding that journaling to be completely cathartic, much like the running that is inspiring the writing, and there's some deeply personal stuff that's pouring out of my pen.  

Stay tuned, I just might inspire you too.  Or, my true insanity might come to the surface.