The Start and the Finish Line
Nine weeks ago, I didn’t run. In fact, I tried to move as little as possible. Inexplicably, one of my random urges caused me to look up information about running. I wanted the efficiency that running would bring my weight loss plan. As I read more about training programs and the proper way to start running, I felt drawn to the process itself. I settled on this Couch-to-5K program as someone in for the weight loss and cardio benefits, and somewhere in the process I became a runner. Or, perhaps more accurately, I discovered that in some unspeakably bizarre fashion I always have been a runner.
Today was the last day of my initial training program. I managed to cover about 4.3 km in thirty minutes of running. I didn’t feel a rush of accomplishment today. I finished my run this evening, and it felt just like the end to nearly every one of the other twenty-six runs. When I started the program, I thought of the nine-week end as a finish line that I would cross with an internal sense of triumphal victory, but somewhere in the whole process I’ve seen that the start line and the finish line are and have always been in myself. I don’t want to stop running. In fact, I’ve already started planning my training for the next couple of weeks. I have races to schedule around and plan for, so the end feels even less like an end.
The accomplishment has been consistently putting one foot in front of the other day after day, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Technorati Tags: Accomplishments, Running, C25K