Chapter 1: Back Story

I never ran much 'just to run' as a kid. Sure, there were games of tag, capture the flag, cowboys and indians, running for my life after taking a cheap shot at my big brother, but not so much running on its own.

Growing up, my real passion lay in team sports. At 5 years old I started tee-ball in summer and soccer in fall. I was the only girl on a boys soccer team, playing keeper and learned at a young age that a.)boys can be mean when they feel a girl is invading their territory (obviously pre-pubescent boys) and b.)I had to play hard and ruthless to earn their respect. To this day the tendon on my right ring finger can pop out of place easily thanks to a full kick swing in the middle of a save.  

After a decade of only softball and soccer, I branched out to basketball in middle school (proudly making the team after having full on puking flu at tryouts), flag football in high school and teaching step aerobics and practicing tennis in college. A lot of conditioning AKA running was involved but I only ever saw it as practice. Never running just for the fun of it. 

Towards the end of my college days at Eckerd, I really needed a fun outlet to stay healthy and active. I started running on the treadmill in the gym and around campus which wasn't that far. Maybe 3 miles. For the longest time, 3 miles was my go-to workout. 

When my best friend, Bria, was down from Flagler, we would run together frequently. She was much faster than me with her years of running high school track and pole vaulting plus completing 2 marathons before I even entertained the possibility of running that far. She was patient, jogging as slow as I needed, and shared a lot of her wisdom/trial and error knowledge. 

The best thing I learned from Bria was that running could be fun. Period. Full-stop. It wasn't a means to an end. It was meaningful in any way you made it in your life. No matter how fast (or slow in my case) you were, how far you ran, how sweaty you got (a lot!), the whole point was you were out there doing it for YOU. It felt great afterward. Hello runner's high! It came with a sense of accomplishment. A feeling that I'd never felt while playing on a team. I was alone, pushing myself as hard as I felt up to that particular day, in my own head most of the time (some weird things cross your mind out there) and pounding the pavement until my body had had enough. I was hooked. 

Then it happened. A life altering event that (gasp) I had no control over and burst my running bubble.

~Continued in Chapter 1.1