My Running Journey

 

This morning I got up to in the pitch black to finish off week five 10k run, it had been raining all week, and my health had not been the best this last week, a blood test came back showing my thyroid elevated and that I was low in iron, I have been a little extra tried these past few days, so my mindset and motivation has been a little low.

I don’t think the rain has helped with keeping up my momentum.

Even though it was not raining this morning, I was still struggling to get up in the dark, but I knew that if I didn’t, I would continue to fall behind in the program.  Something that I do not want to do as I am enjoying doing the program with my daughter so much, and it has been very important to me this year to get back into the rhythm of running and develop the fitness to make it part of my life routine.

You see nine years ago I lost my husband and my daughter in a tragic car accident, two of my children survived which I am so grateful for…they are my precious gifts given back to me that day, and my children are the reason I am here today.

Running, being fit and taking care of myself during that time was my strength, and I used the mantra Strong Body, Strong Mind and Strong Spirit.  I would stay this over and over again, reminding myself that if I looked after myself, I would be able to cope with all the kids and I had to face to rebuild our lives again.

There were many days during this time that I did the ugly cry running throughout the streets of my home town Toowoomba. Especially on the day that I said could goodbye to my beautiful husband and then turn around some hours later to say goodbye to my sweet Imogen. It was in those hours in between that I used running as a way to focus and to keep my thoughts together.

I was a fitness trainer at the time and even ran a running group, we would train for events and I would take them out for training sessions, little did they know that every time I went running with them, they were lifting me and giving me strength to keep going.  

You see from this time running has become very close to my heart.

I share this story today, as I needed to remind myself as to why committing to this running program is important to me and what running has given me…it has been a friend to me when I needed it, and a friend that I want to continue to have in my life.

After reminding myself of this, this morning, I just want to say that I did get out of bed, kicked my sorry butt and ran for 45min in the dark before heading to work.  I had a head light on to see the road and believe me I wasn’t the prettiest sight, so thank goodness it was pitch black…

But thing is, I did and I was happy…