more things Beautiful!

Today I ran.

Over the summer I tried running a little bit. I would go to an unlit track, late at night, with a friend who was sworn to secrecy about my attempts at running. There were several reasons for this. The first being that a 300+ pound woman running is not a pretty sight and at the time, I thought no one should be subjected to that. The second reason being that I did not want anyone to know, lest I fail and am not able to do it. And the third and most ridiculous reason is that if I start running, and people know about it, then perhaps there will be higher expectations of what I can do and therefore, less room for slacking. Yep just being honest here folks!

Over the past several months I have been walking a lot on the treadmill, but thought running would not happen again until warmer weather when I could go back to that unlit track. I have been increasing my speed and the amount of time I spend on the treadmill but had not run on it yet. Today, as I was walking I thought, I am practically jogging now, perhaps if I just changed how I moved it would become a jog. Without a second thought or a look around to see if anyone was watching, I hit the accelerator a couple more times and moved into a run. I ran for 15 seconds...then slowed down....then I did 30 seconds....slow down....then I did 1.5 minutes and I thought..."I am running! I can do this!"

I finished out my first 40 minutes on the treadmill playing around with increasing and decreasing my speed to running and walking then went and did some weight machine stuff. When I finished that I still had another 40 minutes to be at the gym as I had committed to 2 hours today and the treadmill was calling my name.

I got back on and after 10 minutes I decided I would do the 30 second sprint things I see all the time on The Biggest Loser where they jump onto the side rails of the treadmill then back on again. I ran for 30 seconds and rested for 30 seconds for almost 25 minutes. Sometimes I would run a little longer or rest a little longer, but I never rested for more than a minute.

You should have seen me. I was a grinning, sweating, smelly fool! I was counting down my 30 seconds when I wanted to stop, out loud and everything. I no longer cared what anybody else thought about me running. And when I wanted to stop all together and my old me tried to rationalize that I had done enough, the new me shouted back that I am not a quitter and I can do this...I am doing this! I can do more than I ever thought possible! I can exceed my own expectations, let alone anyone else's. And the sight of a 333 lb woman running...I imagine it was Beautiful!