CT: Running
Hello Internet Friends! I, like the vast majority of my family, am wildly, scarily competitive. I was the kid who got so frustrated that I cried when my high school volleyball team lost. I was moved down to second chair in orchestra in 8th grade and you would have thought that the world had ended. And that's a genetic trait. Pictionary isn't over in my family until at least one person has stormed away from the table in tears. We literally don't play Monopoly anymore because we value our relationships too much. So when I find that I'm really, really not good at something, I tend not to do it as much. Or at least, I try not to do it in front of other people. Except that somehow, inexplicably, I got talked into signing up for a half marathon last year. And it turns out that running is something that I am horrible at. And yet, last year about this time I finished that half marathon and it was one of the hands-down most profound experiences of my life. In between the panting and water stops and crying (literal crying, like running and crying. It was a sight), I started to feel this reserve of strength inside me. And because I am just a gigantic nerd, it felt like that moment when the hero finally gets the upper hand and starts to defeat the dragon. And afterwards you get churros! Just like the legends of old. And I'm finally starting to feel all that zen that runners talk about. When your body is telling you that you might be dying, like right now, like in this very second, it's hard to worry about the other things going on in your life. Not sure that's how it's supposed to happen, but here we are. So, as I mentioned in my New Year's post, this year we're taking it to the next level. A group of friends, my sister, my stepmom and I are doing the Pixie Dust Challenge at Disneyland in May. For those of you not familiar, the Pixie Dust Challenge is a 10K on Saturday followed by a half marathon on Sunday. The next few months are when everything is going to get very real, very fast. The training is hard this time, I'm not going to lie to you. Learning how to make your body do stupid things two days in a row is hard, guys. But we're going to make it. And even if we die, we die at Disneyland, and then you get to haunt Disneyland. And what could be better than that? (Possibly not dying. That's what.) -CT