Today I completed my first official run. I've been an athlete my entire life. I started playing soccer when I was four and continued until I left my town for college. So when I went to school and no longer had any sports to take part in, I felt like part of me was missing.
I accidentally discovered running as its own sport during my second year of college and I started to love it. I looked into long distance running and discovered it's a lot of fun when it's not the mile you're required to run in P.E. every Friday.
Although I did take part in another 5K, I was pretty young and walked the entire course as a fundraiser. So I'm calling this my first official run. It was only a 5K, but I loved it. The feeling of crossing the finish line is one of the greatest feelings. I wanted to cry from deep pain from a lack of training and shin splits and cry for my accomplishment. There were so many people who finished and stayed to cheer us on, as well as people cheering us on along the course with signs, or singing We Are The Champions, which made it that much better. After 2 years of talking about running a race, I finally did it!
A couple of years ago I realized that I should be running, since I can. So my sister and I ran a small town race and were told each step we took was actually 1 1/2 steps: 1 step for us and 1 step for one of my family members who can't walk at the moment.
We started out not knowing how much we were going to run. We took it as a trial run to see what our time would be in a race setting and to just have fun. We did a lot better than intended! It was a great start since there weren't a ton of people. I'm also very proud of my sister. It's great to run with people who are there to encourage you. I don't know if I would have ran as much or as fast if I didn't have her to gently push me when I needed it.
It was a great feeling to cross the finish line and know that I had accomplished this and not only ran for myself, but for someone else who wishes they could have ran the race, as well.
