Run It

I'm wearing a half-marathon tee shirt and I feel like a fraud.  I earned this one; I completed the thing, but you know, it's been a while and I'm pretty sure that the statute of limitations has kind of run out on the bragging rights.  Now, I just look like a middle-age lady that borrowed a shirt out of her kid's dresser.  I'm walking around today ready to reply to the smirkers and accusers in my head, "No, really, I did it.  Me.  A half.  Thirteen-point-one.  Poorly, yes, but I earned the right to wear this shirt (whispering)... a few years ago." 

(Cue: Shame)

I'm not wearing the half marathon tee because I don't have any other clean shirts in my dresser, although looking around my bedroom that would be a damn good guess.  I'm wearing it to remind myself to get to the gym today.  Because in a haze of a copious amounts of alcohol and feelings of camaraderie directly following the completion of a silly 5K back in March, I signed up for a(nother) half.  Seriously though, what the hell was I thinking? 

I'm not really a runner, per se.  That title is reserved for people that train consistently and keep track of their stats; dedicated people with regiments, and sinewy thighs, and those tool belts thingys that hold energy packs in silver foil and, I don't know...knives and bungee cords, and other emergency MacGuyver stuff in case some bad running shit goes down during the race.  Individuals that are ever pushing themselves forward.  Actual athletes.  I'm just an intermittent participant in running events.  A hack.  A mere collector of race swag.  A whole lot of time can go by in my world without so much as an attempt a light jog to the mailbox.  Then, someone at work mentions that they've set a month long, 100 mile personal running goal and I feel the tug to get back in.  

Sucka!

In effort to get up from my chair right now and actually drive to the gym and get on the treadmill, I'm trying to keep in mind that I don't have a spectacular personal record to beat.  I think I finished the last one in just under 3 days so it's not like pride has a thing to do with my present feeling of resistance.  I'm quite open with the fact I perform terribly at these events.  I post about it freely on social media as a sort of public service announcement to other lazy, unmotivated people.  After all, if someone like me can do it...how hard can it be?  Misery does love company, doesn't it?   

Wanna join me?

On race day, I'll tuck myself in the last corral with the elderly, the people recently injured, and the heart patients.  The ragtag bunch of misfits that don't give a fuck about your PR, bitch.  These are my people.  Amongst them I'll find my friend Shayna, who runs, walks, and talks with me through it all.  Last time around mile 11, Shayna watched me pick up and eat a piece of red licorice I'd dropped on Pacific Coast Highway.  From the middle of the filthy street to my starving mouth and she didn't even blink.  You don't get that kind of woman to woman acceptance every day.  That's the Real Deal Sister Love right there.  At the number 10 mile marker, we'll take our customary photo.  Smiling.  Because it's almost done.

But here, today, now, it begins.