I ran in high school and college - wasn't great but I got it done. After college I did mountain bike and road racing for a mind numbing 10+ years. Then I sat on my butt and got fat while riding horses.
When I decided to lose weight I knew I would have to exercise. I figured my running days were over but surely I could walk. Walked 3 then 5 then 7 and finally 10 miles at Town Lake. Just like Priscilla, I'm not a fan of the trail. Then I decided walking took too long. So I tried running. First 30 seconds and then slowly but surely building up to 3 miles. By the time the summer was over, I could run 10 miles slowly, I had done a free Rogue program for the Lance Armstrong 10K and joined Rogue to do the AT&T marathon.
I had no idea what I was getting into and after we did the 2 mile time trial and my predicted time was 3:50 (my BQ time) I decided no matter what I would qualify for Boston. Tons of people said no way. When I finished Steve promptly said "beginners luck" - this was about 10 seconds after I crossed the finish line.
At that point, I had no idea how hard qualifying for Boston was for a lot of people, I figured that if I could, it couldn't be that hard. I have developed a huge respect for those people because I have tried 3 times to break 3:30 and haven't done it yet.
Today, I was picking up my race number for the Run for the Heros and I was talking to a lady who had run the Austin Marathon 2 years ago. We talked about Boston and she said there was no way she could qualify. I told her that it would not be easy but that if she worked at it, some day, she too could qualify.
Another amazing thing happened today. I ran Tues, Wed and Thurs this week - had an excellent run yesterday. I felt great today - positive, limber and rode my horse better than ever. This was after 6 weeks of dreading starting back up. Right now, I'm looking forward to each and every run and will take the crappy runs with a smile instead of beating myself up.
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