Why I run

It all started in March.  My multitalented friend, Marsiol, who spends her free time learning her fourth language, face painting, and running races (among other things), invited me for the umpteenth time to join her for a 5K.  This time it was the Zoo Zoom.  I decided I had already said "no" enough to my ambitious friend and signed up.  Then, while I was trying to stay awake on a long night shift at work, Jennifer, who shares a similar passion of goal-setting, proposed the idea of running a half marathon.

Her enthusiastic texts about the Nike Women's Half Marathon enlivened me as I paced hospital walls, ensuring my sleeping patients were still breathing.  I instantly felt the itch to run.  I remembered when I was young I was dragged into runnng with my sister, Jasmine, who would then literally run circles around me trying to get me to go faster. Soon, though I fell in love with running as a teenager and vowed to run a half marathon. But after a 6 mile run, I decided I didn't  like running any longer than an hour.  I thought of how my obession with boys, pioneering, a new job killed my running.  I learned I was not good at multitasking. I remembered that days before I got married, my sisters pulled me out of the house for one last run as a single person.  How they laughed, although sweetly, that even though I was skinny, I had the lung capacity and enduranceof a person three times my age.

I thought of how a few years ago, my sister, Jehan, asked me to run the Nike Women's half marathon.  I was so excited to run again!  Then we didn't get in.  Graem and I decided to go to Guyana for 2 months and the more I planned my trip, the less I ran.  I have since been more convinced that I am not good at having more than one goal at a time. I guess I am disproving the theory that girls were supposed to be good at doing lots of things at once.

I thought of how my sisters had both run marathons before they turned 30 and how the big 3-0 is right around the corner for me.  How as a cardiac, then a rehab nurse, I should be able to hold my own on a treadmill.

Even though, I have only run on and off since being a teenager, the challenges I have faced felt like a run.  During my last stay in Guyana, I would be overjoyed by the exciting twists and turns of the experience.  Then I would be hit by a sudden pain, longing for home, much like a side stitch could practically drop me in my tracks.  But I would keep on going, feel better, and be overjoyed again.  When it was over, I felt like a new person, proud and encouraged that I could do it again.  It was the same feeling after a year of pioneering, finishing nursing school, or enduring any trying day.  It was soon be over.  I would feel good and be ready to take on another day, or year, or feat.  I get why the Bible says we are in a race for life.  It makes sense.  It's worth it. 

So here it goes...I will finally do a half marathon, while doing all the other important things in my life.  I am happy so many of you want to go run with me. It makes it so much better! Running is a sport that I can do alone, but its really about all of you.