Growing up, I never participated in organized sports. Many of my friends were busy in club sports; playing soccer, basketball, or tennis. I just couldn't work up any enthusiasm over chasing a ball. It wasn't until my mid-20's that I got a gym membership and started exercising regularly. It quickly became a passion.
After I had our second child, the gym was a total bust. Boy had no interest in being in childcare with all those strangers and I finally had to surrender our membership. And it's not like I didn't try, either: we would go to the gym to 'play' in the childcare together, stay for 15 minutes and go home. I would leave him for 10 minutes and come back, thinking I could eventually work up to a regular, more appropriate length of time - but Boy wasn't having it. After being paged with Boy's screams in the background over the PA for all the gym to hear over a dozen visits - it just sort of killed it for me.
We received a baby jogger as a gift when Girl was an infant, and I'd never used it much. One of my neighbors also had a baby, and she encouraged me to go for a run with her. I had never been into running; I couldn't seem to get a rhythm with my breath. It was always miserable.
But necessity is the mother of invention and I was desperate, so I kept with it. I ran for a full year before it felt good and was something that I looked forward to. I have heard you could get 'high' from running, and I'd long since given up getting high in the usual ways - so I thought it would be worth a try. I progressed to running 5k's and then eventually ran my first marathon 5 years ago. If one mile is good - then 26.2 is better, right?
So, this Thursday I leave for New York to run a half marathon with my SIL. Flying 2,400 miles to run 13 miles seems crazy, but somehow the math works. Wish me luck, Internet!
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