“Run for your life!”

This morning I ran for an hour and I decided to bring along my iPod with a new “running playlist” that I created. My first mile is always the toughest, I know that it is hard for everyone but I always just feeling like I want to QUIT. I think, “Why am I doing this to myself?! This sucks!!!!” But I keep going, I ignore the screams of my body telling me to stop. Not because I’m in pain or anything, but it just sucks… I can’t explain it. You runners out there know what I’m talking about.

So today I felt especially like quitting all through my first TWO miles and then I hit a stride and zone that I love. That stride and zone that makes me feel as though I could run forever. I had the music pumping and I was running with the beat, but the one song that “saved my life” was Gnarls Barkley’s “Run (I’m a Natural Disaster).” I was literally bobbing my head up and down and singing along. People must have thought I was crazy because I was smiling so big and at the stop lights, I picked my knees up really high and ran in place.

It was a great day for running, and even though it seems as though it is always so damn hard… it’s the little things that make it all so worth going out there. I’m improving every time I go out there and some days are better than others. 5k, 8k, even 10k. In the cold, the rain, and it has stopped being about losing weight some time ago. Even with the nagging protest of my body telling me that I don’t have to do it and the lure of the thoughts of a cappuccino and some sort of sweet bread.

I know that I don’t have to… but actually, I want to.