Week 7, Day 1: I can't believe I've gotten this far!

Out in the grey London morning for an easy 4 miles. Yesterday's rest day did me lots of good, and I felt great today. 4 miles, 44:54.

How I wish I could go back and talk to my 18-year-old self and tell her, convince her, that she's fit and running is fun anyway. Somewhere around then I decided that if I couldn't be a size 2, I'd just do nothing. And now I'm paying for it. I miss the days when I could run 5 miles in under 35 minutes. I'll get back there someday, I hope. When I was a kid, I started playing volleyball. I was terrible, but over time I got better. My coach said to me, "No one told you you weren't an athlete, so you became one." I know she meant well, but I took it totally wrong and became convinced I wasn't an athlete. It took me until I was out of college to think about myself as an athlete again, even though I played volleyball, swam, ran in high school, ran/swim a little in my first year of college before I had my do nothing revelation, played rugby from college through graduate school. Only when I started playing rugby well did I learn to think about myself as an athlete again.

Shameless plug: One of my coworkers is running the London Marathon to raise money for the Spinal Injuries Association. I believe she's got a family member with a spinal injury. If you're interested in sponsoring her, I know she'd be thrilled.