When I was in high school I wasn't athletic. P.E. was one of my most hated classes and I dreaded it. I was uncoordinated. I couldn't catch a ball. I couldn't hit a ball. I couldn't even bench press the bar in weight training! And when it came to running, well, running around the track was just plain awful. I couldn't even make it once around the track without walking. So if anyone said to me, one day you will be a runner and you will enjoy it I would've have asked them what kind of drugs they were taking.
Over the years I've done various activities to be healthy. I once joined a gym and lifted weights and was actually looking pretty good until I got pregnant and my gym membership was taken away. I have done aerobic workouts. I've done aerobic workouts with weights and as much as I enjoyed them nothing seemed to hold my interest.
Then in February of 2011, my husband proposed to me. I joyfully went about the business of planning my wedding. One of the biggest steps to planning a wedding for a woman is buying the wedding dress. Since I am no longer twenty-one and was not overwhelmed with visions of being the "princess" my goal in a dress was much simpler. I am short so I didn't want a full skirt to overwhelm me; I didn't want bushels of crinolin or any form of flouncy skirt. I wanted a dress with some sort of straps and a lacy back to cover up my ugly tattoo on my right shoulder. I found the perfect dress; it was form fitting, a mermaid (what, a mermaid for me? NO WAY! Oh, yes, a mermaid for me!) with a see through back with lines of crystals horizontal across the back and promptly put it on layaway. The dress fit perfectly with the exception of being too long and a little too big in the bosom. No problem, those are easy fixes. My mother in law offered to hem it and I can always buy boobs. Over the next few months I saved my money and the day came to pick up the dress. I took one of my best friends and my daughter with me for one last try on before I brought the dress home. To my utter embarrassment and disgust I couldn't get it zipped up! I knew something had to be done. The wedding was a couple months away and I had to fit into the dress. Our money was tight and there was no budget for a new dress.
Well, in our bedroom stood an old mountain mechanicized of steel and conveyor belt otherwise known as The Treadmill. It sat there with the intention of one or the other of us using it to "get into shape" at one point or another. It looked like it was my time. I'd never been on a treadmill before. I gingerly stepped onto the belt and pushed the buttons and held on for dear life. I started out walking but I quickly realized that walking wasn't going to cut it for me. From somewhere deep inside me came this intense desire to move.....a desire to run, and run I did.....and it felt good! Over the next couple of months I worked up to running three miles a day and on November 11 when my wedding came around, my dress fit perfectly! I was overjoyed and I knew it was because of my dedication to the treadmill.
After the wedding time slipped by and I lost way. The Treadmill begged and taunted me to come back but I ignored it, preferring to sit at my computer with my cat at my feet instead. Then one day I realized that my clothes didn't fit again. The weather was turning warm and it was time to get out the summer clothes and I was ashamed at the way my body looked. But more than that, somewhere along the line I found the Susan G. Komen 5k Race for the Cure. The cause of breast cancer has always been a cause that has been very important to me. Whenever possible I have donated to help search for the cure and to help those who need medical care and can't afford it receive what they need. But this race, something in me woke up and rose up like a great lion ready to roar. I realized I had two months to prepare for the race and I bravely signed up and immediately began fund raising. This was something new though. I had never run a race before. Three miles is one thing on the treadmill in the comfort of your own home with the mill happily helping you move. Three miles on a road is something completely different. I began training. I started out back on the treadmill since it had been almost six months since I'd even run and I wasn't even sure I could run a mile! I struggled on the mill but I kept telling myself, if those women can endure what they go through just to live I can do this. I gradually moved my training outside. I went to the high school track and began running loops around the track. It wasn't until about two days before the race that I was even able to make it three miles outside, but I did it.
The day of the race was beautiful. We drove to St. Louis and I wish I could tell you how much the experience moved me but I just do not have the words. Almost everyone there had someone's name on their shirt and on their hearts. And the survivors, oh, the survivors....there were thousands of them in their bright pink shirts and the victory in their eyes, oh, yes, this is why I was running. The name on my shirt was Bonnie. She is my aunt and she was diagnosed with breast cancer several years ago. Luckily, Aunt Bonnie was regular with her breast exams and she was diagnosed quickly enough that she didn't even have to have chemotherapy. We were blessed but she was on my heart and my shirt as I lined up with the untimed runners. We began moving, walking at first and then we turned the corner and you could see ahead....all the people running down the street, there were so many it was like a sea of pink & white. I wish I'd had a camera to take a picture; it was one of the most moving things I've ever seen. We came up to the pink painted starting line and I began to run. My music was in my head - ironically, it was "I Run For Life" by Melissa Etheridge, the song she wrote about her experience with breast cancer, and my feet needed to move. As I ran through the course I was amazed at the people on the side of the road. I didn't know any of them, but there they were, cheering, cheering for those women who were survivors and cheering for me! Me, a stranger with a name on her back!
Something happened to me that day and I know I can never go back to that woman who sits in her chair all day and plays on her computer. I was born to move. I was born to run. And run I will!
I am woman; see me run!
KEA
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