Hills

Week 3 of training complete! Wow, what a difference a week makes....this one was infinitely better than Week 2! I am proud to announce that I completed my longest distance yet on my run yesterday- 4 miles!! Go me!!!!!!!!!!!!! I probably should have planned out the route a little bit better beforehand because this was supposed to be an easy run, and instead it turned into a "hell", excuse me, a hill run. The first 2 1/2 miles were nothing but one very steep hill followed by another hill that was slightly steeper. I couldn't help but chuckle a little bit to myself (as I was panting up these monstrosities) about how I NEVER paid any attention to how hilly this road was before. I must have driven this route eighty five thousand times and I never realized that it was so... NOT flat.

Oh, well.

Something else that I was pondering during my run. Hills are downright unpleasant, but they make your legs stronger. Indeed, I could FEEL the strength pulsing through them, buzzing all the way up my body, and I knew that next time I ran on this road, my experience would be easier. That's when it hit me that I've been traveling over mental hills this entire time, and just getting stronger. I keep expecting that one day I am going to wake up and everything is going to be easy. That I will just strap on the sturdy ole water shoes, head out the door, run 37 miles, come back home and lose 42 lbs. It doesn't work that way!! (DUH, you may be thinking, but I'm having a revelation here.) I'm waiting for something that is never going to happen, and it isn't supposed to happen.

What's really going on is that I'm just running up and down hills. Sometimes its uphill and it sucks. On those days, I seriously doubt my abilities to do anything but raid the fridge for a gigantic chocolate cake. But every time I press on and continue the climb, I get just a little bit stronger and more prepared for the next time things get hard and overwhelming.

Looking back over this journey, its very easy for me to remember all the times I wanted to give up. (Well, all I really have to do is go over some of my older posts...which I actually did the other night and had a nice laugh with myself) I've never been proud of those moments, but they are what they are. But when I look a little bit harder, I see that each meltdown was a little bit shorter in duration than the previous one. Each one was just a little bit easier to come out of. I am getting stronger.

And now I can breathe easy knowing that there isn't going to be one magic day when everything will click into place and stay that way. That's not the way life is designed. I need these hills to make me strong and keep me strong. I say bring on the hills and I will climb them! And there is immeasurable comfort in knowing that when I feel down and out, that is just part of the process. All it means is that I have another hill to climb. And I know that I'll be strong enough to climb it because I've had a lot of practice!


Oh, and by the way...I'm down to 213. ;)