5K Accomplished

One fine day in early July, on an innocent little camping trip, I joined my friend, Laurel, for a walk. She casually mentioned a race, (here, my heart skitters...), and wondered if I would like to train with her to run said race, in the hopes of staving off the inevitably decrepit physical state of our bodies by the time we hit our 40th birthdays.
I, (always the idealist), agreed! So, we started running, to train for a 5K race. My training started with 1 minute altenating intervals of run/walk/run, increasing to two minutes running, then three etc., as the weeks went by. After 8 weeks, and no small amount of whining on my part, I was successfully running at 7 minute intervals, for a total of about 30 minutes.

The fact that I was running at all still strikes me as odd, and those of you who know me also know my motivation for a new project starts strong and lags fast.
That being said, you can imagine the out of body experience I had when I completed my 5K race on Saturday. Even in the midst of my excitement, I felt slightly dissociated from the whole experience, because my brain has yet to accept that it was actually me that did all that running. My couch potato existence has taken a sharp twist!

I have to take this opportunity to thank Laurel. With her having practically twice my leg length, I'm sure she could have left me in the dust, but she continued to keep pace with me, encourage me, cheer me on and support me.
My friend, I love you. And I love the conversations we have when we run. Sharing child-rearing anxieties and marriage stress with a friend always makes the load lighter, and sharing them with someone who seems so able to see the brighter side is teaching me a lot about how to see the world.

I am blessed to have a few great people in my life. Today, I count Laurel as my blessing.

A beginning

After a heart-warming, thought provoking conversation about joy, held over lunch with a wonderful friend, it occurs to me that I need to make more of an effort to capture the joy in everyday moments. This will be my place to savour those opportunities, and perhaps discover something new about my way of seeing the world.