I made that happen

Sometimes it's the little things, and sometimes it's the big things.

 Running started as a little thing for me. Lace up some shoes and lumber up on the treadmill. Watch television shows my husband does not necessarily want to watch with me. Give it a go for 30 or 45 minutes. Call it good. This little routine got stale, and I decided it was time to push my boundaries. Lace up some shoes, listen to music, and go outside if the temperature is above 50 degrees. Otherwise, it's back on the treadmill. Outside, run most of a three mile loop at the nearest park. Call it good. I decided then it was time to lose weight and get a little healthier. And that right there is a little sentence with lots of weight behind it. Pun not intended.

In 2009 I was laid off from the bookstore chain where I spent almost 12 years of my life making a living. I went from being stressed about the work I was doing or not doing, to being dumbstruck and worried about what I was going to do to support myself. Suddenly I was also a lot more sedentary. Despite popular misconceptions, working in a bookstore does not mean you sit and read all day. I spent most of every day on my feet helping customers and shelving books and making espresso and running from one end of the store to the other all day long. To go from that to...not is a shock to the system. And my system rebelled. It should come as no surprise that I put on weight. In what seemed to be the blink of an eye I was 20 pounds heavier than I had ever been, and my weight had been a steady 165 since college.

A few years down the road, and my fiance was told he needed to get healthier by his doctor. Ever the supportive wife-to-be, I jumped on the board, and that's when my running got serious. I toughened up. I determined to lose "a few pounds" and get healthier. Those are pretty generic goals, and I jogged across them with mediocre results.

Sigh.

 2013 came, and I determined that I was going to make real changes to my life. I set three goals: Get married, Focus on writing, and Run a 10K. And miraculously, I succeeded. I'm married. I left my bookstore job voluntarily to be a housewife and devote real time to my writing, and I ran THREE 10Ks. I was awesome sauce. Oh, and yeah--I also lost 15 pounds. And people noticed. So that was nice.

Look at me go!

I decided I need to step up my game for 2014, and I set one clear goal to help me do that: Run a half marathon. A year before, that goal was so far beyond my ken. Why would anybody willingly put their body through that? 13.1 miles is so far. After proving to myself that I could set a goal and accomplish it the previous year--not just once but three times--it occurred to me that maybe I could run a half marathon, and maybe I wanted to run a half marathon. I signed up for the Corvallis Half Marathon last fall, and in December I decided to get serious about training. I picked up a free training program on the RunKeeper app on my phone and I set out to do it. Amazing things followed, and I ran further than I thought I could or ever would. In March I ran 105.7 miles.

Still standing!

On April 13, I ran the Corvallis Half Marathon. I determined that I would not walk at all; I had to run the whole thing. I set a time goal for myself.

I met each of those goals. I finished. I'm a winner. And I am proud. And my husband is proud. And that is an amazing feeling. And there is something important to realize beyond just finishing the race: I can set a goal, I can follow a plan, and I can achieve. I can make it happen.

Why is this really important? It's the writing thing. I believe writing is my place in this world. I like it, I'm good at it, but since it is an art, it's also vague and hard to achieve something in that sphere. But hell, I can run a half marathon. You think there's anything I can't do? Just watch. I'm making a life, and I'm going to make it happen.

Made of awesome.