In January, as I was idly scrolling through Facebook, I came across a link to a charity run to support the Stroke Association. This charity is very close to my heart as both my Grandfathers passed away from strokes. I have never been a runner and no matter how fit I am through dancing I have never been able to run for longer than 15minutes. Being the start of the year and all, I figured why not, so I signed up for the 10k! New year new me....
I had the best intentions of training hard and had images of myself looking really toned and flying across the finish line. However, a few illnesses and a car crash later, plus a few excuses it was the day before the run and I had only just managed to get to 5k in training!! I couldn't back out as I had raised quite a lot of money from family and friends. Not only that, I am not a quitter and my main aim in life is to make my family proud, which even if I had walked the whole way round they would be.
On the morning of the run I opened my blinds to, yes you guessed it rain. Relentless rain, that added to my nerves was not a good start to the day. At the location of the run - Heaton Park - there were all kinds of people of different shapes and sizes, someone even dressed as a gingerbread man! They held a group warm up for all the runners which I joined in with, all the while panicking about what was to come. The only thing keeping me going was the smiling, encouraging faces of my family and friends.
As the race started, all I could think about was the rain and how much harder I felt it was going to be in those conditions, in fact once I was wet I didn't care because I thought that it couldn't get any worse. This was until the track started filling with puddles, as we came round one corner, a poor lady had one of those Vicar of Dibley moments, where the puddle is actually a hole, she disappeared up to her knees!
Coming up to the halfway point, I was quite impressed that I had only had to walk twice and one of those times was to walk around a massive puddle and muddy patch. I did start to worry that I couldn't do the second half when at the side of the track I saw my very own cheerleaders, I hate to admit it but as I ran past them a few tears escaped as I realised once again how lucky I am to be surrounded by such wonderful people.
After that, the second half didn't seem as bad but as I got to the finish line I could feel my legs turning to jelly and had to give myself a talking to, to make sure I didn't cry with relief!
I have never been so proud of myself as I have that day. Not only did I make myself proud but I made my family and my friends proud not just because I ran 10k but I did it to support an amazing charity. I am very quick to judge myself and find fault in what I do, there is nothing that can take away what I achieved that day and that feeling of pride and happiness is still pulsing through me 3 days later.
1 comment:
Thanks for sharing this Jennifer.
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