#28 - Run in a 5k - Check!

Here I sit, having just eaten everything but the table where we sat at a mexican restaurant down on the Boulevard, about to try to convince people that I really, truly enjoy running.

Well, it IS true... (but I must also make it crystal clear: I will own you in a chip and salsa eating contest. Unless you're a professional chip and salsa eater, in which case I will certainly try to own you in a chip an salsa eating contest, but might fail.)

If you had asked me a year ago "Ellen, do you like running?" I would have replied with a throw-my-head-back belly laugh. If you had asked me that question a year ago it would have been an immediate cue that you didn't know me. Because a year ago the answer would have been, as previously mentioned, a throw-my-head-back belly laugh that implied "NNnnnnoooooooo."

But then my awesome long-lost-friend-from-hs-found-again-on-facebook Baylee hosted these Kick-Your-Booty boot camps which I attended because why not wake up at 6am to torture yourself into feeling better  it was time to stop being a lump. And then I mentioned that the first-ever Rock the Crossroads 5k was happening in a week and wouldn't it be fun to run in that someday? To which Baylee replied, yeah let's do it! And then I found myself running every day that week to try to not look like I was about to die after mile one.

I ran it! And walked it... and then ran it some more, finally crossing the finish line in 42:09, which was the slowest of all three people in the race named Ellen. But... the funny thing was, I wasn't dead. Which was surprising.

And after that I just kept running. Not consistently, but I've successfully completed two more races - Run for the Polar Bears (4 miles through the KC Zoo!) and The KC GroundHog Run (which takes place in storage caves in North KC - totally underground!).

I've discovered two main things from keeping up with this fitness thing:
1. I feel better when I'm active. I sleep better, I have more energy, and my mood is elevated. (hooray, endorphins!)
and
2. I need goals. If I don't have a race to keep me on the move, I lose all motivation to run. What's worse, I've realized that this applies to my everyday life more than I would like to admit. If I know I don't have guests coming over for the next two months, my dishes pile up and my mail is thrown on the floor. If all I have waiting for me in a day is a regular work day, it is mentally exhausting for me to think about getting out of bed. So this leads me to a new personal development:

Get out of bed, do your dishes, and run a few times. And do it because it's the right thing to do, not because you get a reward at the end of it!