I feel that there is no greater feeling than that of being proud of yourself. No, not being prideful, but being proud and confident of yourself and the accomplishments that were the hardest to achieve for you.
Today I would like to take the time to express how happy I am and how proud I am in myself. A year ago, I was a freshman in college who was terrified to have her parents leave her in a place she had never been to.
At 18, I thought I was invincible and was now free to do what I wanted with my life. Which in one respect, meant eating terrible food choices and being lazy when it came to being physically active. I fell hard off my high horse months after when I finished the first semester and headed home for Christmas break and made an alarming discovery that I really wasn't invincible.
I got down on myself and I was having a truly painful struggle with trying to lose, what is considered to college students, the horrid Freshman 15. It was a very unsuccessful journey and to my dismay, my goals of becoming healthier and more fit, seemed to never get passed the first week before I caved and went straight back to where I started, ground zero.
It has never looked like my weight has been a problem and people would always tell me that they looked up to me as inspiration and a role model when it came to health and fitness, but inside I was dying. It killed me when people would say things like that because I understood that I was truly someone they looked up to and yet I was letting them down without them even truly knowing.
Now don't worry, this isn't a sob story, remember?
The reason why I mention this backstory is because of why I am so proud of myself today.
On October 18th of this year, I had the courage to sign up for my very first half marathon. For so long I have said countless times that I was going to run a marathon or a half marathon and then I would quit after a week into it.
This time around, it was different. I filled out an application, put down $58 for the entry fee and tied my running shoes on. I have had so much support from family, friends and especially roommates, that I truly am so proud to say that this is my THIRD week of training for the half marathon and I am starting to absolutely love running and can't stop. I have a feeling that I will be pulling through to the end this time around.
Now I would like to humbly take a minute to thank my beautiful super runner roommate Kayli for helping me set up a running schedule that would help me build up to run 4 miles straight to do a pre-training before the actual training begins. You are my inspiration. Thank you to my drop dead gorgeous cousin Brittney for being the first to agree to run the race with me, I am in debt to you for being so willing and positive to join me, although I am pretty sure you thought I was crazy when I first asked you. Thank you to my lovely aunt Jill for also agreeing to run with me. You are the other person who inspired me to do this as well as the fact that you are the biggest source of my motivation to not give up on this race. Also, I would like to thank my darling roommate Lara for *finally* signing up for the race with me and believing in herself. I know you can do it and I will be there every step of the way. Lastly I would like to thank my parents, Kent and Melanie, for believing that I can do this and I have their full support on this.
Not only have I been able to stick with this goal for once in my life, but I have also started my own team, to keep me going, and everyone else in the team. To be able to realize that if you don't finish what you have started, you are not only going to let yourself down but the rest of the team down-- it is at least my motivation to keep at it, one step at a time. I never want to feel like internally or externally that I am letting people down.
Man! I am so excited for June 8, 2013! And thanks again to my running team:
Jill Reed: Aunt
Lara Zenger: Roommate
Brittney Johanson: Cousin
Stay tuned for updates on our progress and I feel like I will be putting up a lot of inspirational things because of this so stay tuned for those as well. Thanks for reading!!
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