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"Meet Yourself Where You Are"...

Sunday, 14 June 2015 00:10

Take ownership of the awesomeness within you—no matter where you are.

By Meredith Atwood (triathlon.competitor.com)

Well, I’m not really a runner,” I told the teeny, clearly-a-runner girl at the gym. We were in the locker room. My towel was wrapped tightly around my body, making me look like a giant, white sausage. Her towel, loosely draped around her fit frame, seemed to wrap around her twice. “Yeah, not really a runner,” I said again. “I just try really hard.” I figured that sabotaging qualification bought me some sort of pass for my big butt and woeful treadmill pace....

I have muttered that line—I just try really hard—with my head hanging down, more times than I can count. Five words that completely disqualify my running and are completely ridiculous, considering all the running races I have completed. I started running in 2010, and since then, have crossed finish lines in dozens of 5Ks and 10Ks, and handfuls of half-marathons. Oh, and four half-Ironman triathlons, which include, ahem, a 13.1-mile run.

Most ridiculous of all, I am fairly certain these laughable words escaped my mouth during the throes of training for an Ironman, which culminates in a marathon. Although it’s likely I was probably feeling compromised in a napkin-sized towel at the gym, I still couldn’t believe what was coming out of my mouth.

About eight weeks into Ironman training, this realization finally penetrated my skin: No matter how ploddy I was plodding along on any given day, if I laced up my shoes and went for a run, I was a runner. A real runner. There wasn’t a certain mile or ding ding, light bulb! moment: just the acknowledgement that I worked just as hard—if not harder—than the teeny girls, and my miles were exactly as long as the ones they covered. I began to recognize the good things that made me a runner. My sports bras and shoes were stinky, like every other runner I knew. I was chafing everywhere! Yay! Chafe! I thought about running all the time. I was ticking off 8-, 9-, 11-, and 14-mile runs. Hard, long runs. And I wasn’t doing myself any favors by discrediting the hard work I was putting in. READ MORE