RunnerChick

I love to run. Well, it wasn’t always that way. Growing up, both of my parents were runners and I thought it was totally normal to wake up, and if my mom or dad wasn’t there yet they were still out on a run but would be back in a bit. It wasn’t until I started having sleepovers at my friends’ houses that I realized that was an anomaly.

My parents set a great example of staying active, and while I thought they were crazy for wanting to run for no apparent reason, but I got the underlying message. I did all the usual sports, sucked at all of them, but had a blast. I loved soccer and played it all the way up until about 7th grade when it came to the point where all of my friends had made the competitive team and I didn’t. My mom suggested I try cross-country and I agreed, I thought it was some kind of team that traveled around to different places. I was wrong. My first practice I fell and got got some pretty bad cuts, my first race I almost puked in the bushes, my first track workout I heard someone say that to go faster you should run on your toes so I ran all the 800′s on my tip toes and my calfs paid the price later. I hated it. But I’m a pretty competitive person and even though I was at the back of the pack I started to pick my way up to the mid-back of the pack. Somewhere along the line, something kicked in and soon enough I was hooked.

Like I said I sucked, but I liked the people and one of the best perks was that after practice my parents would let me choose if I wanted to go out to taco bell or Costco pizza. My family didn’t go out to eat much because it was expensive, so that was a pretty big deal. Mind you, I was still only running maybe three or four days a week and some of those days clocked in at a whopping one mile which I thought was sooooo long. But, I kept improving, even won a couple races, and by the time I got to high school I was going to be the fastest girl on the high school team.

My dad sat me down and told me that in high school I’d now be a little fish in the big sea. I loved that, I actually liked being the one chasing the people ahead instead of setting the pace…it pushed me to run harder. I liked to train with the guys and I’m pretty sure it pushed them harder too because they didn’t want some girl to beat them. Alright, well, I had fun in high school and was lucky enough to travel to some amazing places and meet some amazing people, lots of my idols. Though, to the ‘normal’ folk they’d have no idea who these runners were, it’s not like I was meeting Paris Hilton or LiLo for crying out loud!

Anyways, I loved running, I loved racing, I loved competing, and anything of that nature. I’m the kind of person who has the tendency to do too much and usually it’s my coach who has to rein me in. As far as running goes, I knew that I loved not only the racing aspect but just the act itself, and I knew that no matter what level it was on I’d always be runner if even just getting out there and putting in easy runs ’til the end of my days.

Well, in 2010 I was out on a run and was hit by a car. It ended up being a hit and run driver and as I watched that guy speed off I turned around and yelled for help from the car that had been following the one who hit me! Yup, that sucked, I heard it coming and it was one of those slow-mo type things where I watched myself get picked up in the air and vividly remember seeing my right shoe fly off and arc into the distance. It’s one of those times where your mind has time to think, “$#*!, THIS is gonna suck.” Somehow I landed so that I was on my bum and skidding into the middle of the road and not on my back. At first my brain thought, “Okay, a little road rash, pick yourself up, finish the run, then you’ll have to pick out the gravel.” Then I looked down.

The reason I’d landed seated was because my right leg was the first thing to hit the pavement. On my shin. The tibia and fibula snapped in a few places and were sticking out of my mangled leg. Seriously, it looked like my lower leg was only held on by a string of calf muscle and I was afraid that if I moved it at all my foot end would completely separate. I’ll spare you the gories, but I kid you not the first thing that crossed my mind wasn’t, “I’m thankful to be alive,” it was, “Oh, my God, am I ever going to run again?”

John who scooped me off the road!

It took the doctors multiple surgeries and me going back and forth into the hospital to get my leg together and going along they told me that because of the way not only the bones broke but the tendons were snapped, that I might never be able to walk normal again. Running then was an ever bigger question mark. Fast forward, I don’t like to dwell on the not so fun parts, and like I said I usually try to laugh my way through life and I dubbed myself the gimp for the better part of a year.

I DID get to the point where I could walk normal again. Mind you it took months and months, but I was dead set that I would run again. I held onto that hope because it got me through the next day and then the next. It might sound kind of shallow to say that running was the ‘only’ thing that kept me going, and that’s not the whole truth because it was really my family too. But, I was afraid of thinking what my life would be like without the proper use of one of my legs. It scared me because I knew how much I loved being active and moving.

Rockin’ the gown!

Well, I established my little rehab plan and stuck to it like no one’s business. Dedication is not one of my weaknesses, though I have plenty, but when it comes to something I really want I get after it. The day I first jogged (as much as I hate that word, at the time what I did constituted as ‘jogging.’ As much as it pains me to admit I was a jogger for quite awhile it is the truth and at the time I was elated to be a jogger…haha!) I felt a whole new respect for it. Before, I’d really taken for granted what my body could do for me, I never really appreciated it. I was always so focused on the next goal I wanted to accomplish I don’t think I ever really let myself fully take gratification in what I had done. I always just sort of thought it was a given that I’d have bigger things to be ‘proud’ of.

So, in wrapping up this epic little story, my point is only that today I’m a runner, and not even just a jogger. (Side point, I’m really just being a dork about the whole jogging thing, by NO means do I want to offend anyone, because if you are putting in the effort it really doesn’t matter how fast or slow you go…just do YOUR best!) Now, I KNOW full well I’m hardly a fast runner, it’s kind of pathetic to admit that my PR’s are honestly too old to want to say, and I probably won’t ever break them, but I’m okay with that. I’m actually just so grateful I can run at all. I’m still a runner dork, well, a dork in general. The only really big bummer is that I now have a perma-kankle on my right leg. That is a stinker thanks to a muscle hernia that just can’t be corrected, but I think that’s karma kicking me in the butt for all of my previous jokes about people with kankles. But, like I’ve said if you dish it out you have to be willing to take it too, so I’ve got my kankle!

I like to write and talk about fitness and share with people anything I’ve picked up along the way. I’d like to think I’m pretty schooled in the subject not only because I’ve read plenty but I’ve lived plenty too. I’ve also been lucky enough to have worked with and been around people who are experts and who I consider to be just plain geniuses when it comes to getting a body to perform what you want it to do.

I also feel it is really important to spread the message of staying fit and getting everyone up and moving. It maddens me to hear about schools cutting programs and sports because they just don’t think it’s worth spending money on. I like to hear about parents, like my own and so many I know, who inspire their kids to not see exercise as a chore but something that is FUN, because it is! In closing, I’m sure plenty of my blog posts will be littered with running related things, just health and fitness in general, so I thought it warranted a little page of its own. Feel free to ask me any questions, and I do write a lot more on these subjects at another blog and website I’m working on with my friend, Amanda. But you can also always send me a message or shout out, I love other runners and active people in general…because, let’s face it, we are just cooler.