Something amazing happened yesterday on the treadmill.  I ran for 10 minutes straight!!!  As in non-stop, 10 solid minutes!!  This is an absolutely amazing feat for me on so many levels and for so many reasons.  The main reason being that I used to hate running with a passion. 

Did you ever have to “run the mile” in your P.E. class in school?  Well we certainly had to in my middle and high schools and it was a miserable experience.  We all dreaded it and still to this day the words “run the mile” send chills down my spine.  We would set out on those dreadful mornings in our P.E. clothes muttering expletives under our breaths at our P.E. teacher as we ran by her and then once out of view, we’d start walking.  I don’t think I ever got a passing grade for the mile and that was totally fine with me.  It was something that I truly disliked every minute of.

From those early experiences with running, my opinion of it only grew worse as I heard of perfectly healthy runners having untimely heart attacks and dying.  I thought, well if these otherwise perfectly healthy people who run are still dying of heart attacks, why bother trying to stay healthy?  So those people became my new excuse to hate running and live like it didn’t matter.  Whenever someone would merely mention running, I would cover my ears and say “I hate running, la la la.”  Yeah, you can tell I was very mature about this.

Even when I began walking on the treadmill last year, I had no intention of ever actually running.  I would power walk and that was it.  But then, as all things do in time, something changed.  One day as I was walking, and I just felt compelled to run.  Not wanting to hinder my progress I thought, well, what could it hurt?  So I moved up the speed and ran for a minute. 

Wow! I thought.  I actually just ran!  And from that point on, I incorporated running into my routine.  Now my routine consists of short bursts 2-3 minutes long of running in between power-walking with high inclines.  And those 3 minutes still usually leave me breathless.  This is my norm now and I’ve been doing it for a couple months now.  And it works. 

This brings us to yesterday.  I was towards the end of a 3 minute run, lost in thought, when I realize it was time to drop back down to a walk.  Well, I wasn’t winded or tired and I felt as if I could keep going.  So I did. 

5 MINUTES LATER I’m still running!!!  As the minutes kept going by I was getting more and more excited at the prospect of running for so long and not having to stop!  I began to feel elated that this was me, the girl who hated running with a passion, and I was doing it with ease!  And then towards the end, I began to think of Forest Gump… Ruuun Julie, Ruuuun….

10 straight minutes of solid running.  What a feat for me. 

It’s things like that that make me realize the possibilities are endless.  My old perceptions of myself are being shattered. 

I am a new person living a new life and in this new life, I am a runner.