Day 2

“Dear Body:

First, I want to apologize for doing this to you, but come one, you should be a little stronger, don’t you think?  It was just 1.5 mile non stop, that’s NOTHING! And here you are, feeling  defeated, longing for drugs that will end, or at least ease, your pain. You will get them soon, that’s a promise, but before I give them to you, I want you experience how it feels when you set out to do something that seems unattainable, something that you’re not good at, something that you’ve never tried. I want you to remember how it hurts now, so that tomorrow your muscles get stronger, and the next day you will draw from that pain to continue, to get to the finish line.”

Time flies when you’re having fun, but not when you’re running, it seems like those 45 minutes will never end. But somehow there is this twisted satisfaction when you’re done, “ HA now you’re in pain muscles!!” and you feel happy, successful!

I wish pain was always so real and tangible, you tend to remember that one day you fell off your bike and ended up in a ditch with a broken leg, or the time you fell off the stairs and got bruises all over your body, how about the time you tore your ACL and you had to have surgery, and you definitely remember the pain that comes from Malaria. So, how come when it comes to matters of the heart, relationships (not only romantic), choices in life, you forget the pain you felt that one day when someone broke your heart, or when you lied to your best friend?, you forget when others used and abused you, and you don’t seem to remember how you hurt yourself not being able to forgive. I wish my soul had VISIBLE scars, like the one on my knee, this scar reminds me to be careful when I play soccer because I’m gonna mess it up again. I want a scar that I can feel to remind me of the pain I’ve put myself through for being stupid, selfish and naïve, by letting others control my emotions and my happiness.

Because I am such a bad runner, when I run, I think of all the things that I’m not good at, I think of my flaws and my weaknesses. I think about ALL those things I can’t control that I know I should be able to. As I run and COMMAND my body to resist, to finish that 1.5 mile, it makes me believe I can COMMAND my soul to be better, didn’t they say I “have been given a Spirit of Power, Love and Self-Discipline”? I guess then, that I have no excuse! The only thing that can stop me from running this marathon is myself; the only one who can stop the change in my heart, is I.

Diary of a Nonrunner that signed up for a marathon

 This is not meI’m writing about, it’s about this girl that decided to grab her shoes and turnthem into running shoes, apparently, for no good reason.  In another place, that is not the one Ilive in, this girl woke up one morning and said to herself, “I think it’s timeto make a life changing thing, today, I will run”.

She was dreading it all day, because she hates running. Shehates that everything, yes, everything bounces when she runs, the feeling ofnot being able to breathe and that pain in her side after a sprint. She hatesthat her hair gets sweaty and her feet start throbbing, she hates the fact thatafter running for 15 minutes, she can barely go down a set of stairs, let alonewear heels the next day. Nonetheless, off she went!

As she stepped onto the track, the voices in her headstarted singing, “ How much pain has cracked your soul?” “Every step that I take is another mistake…”, “Itdoesn’t even matter how hard you try” “So keep pace, how slow can yougo”. “Thanks Muse and Linkin Park, that is EXACTLY, the motivation I needed formy first run”, she mumbled, she turned the volume up and let, the anger,the frustration and even the annoyance of the lack of self-trust, take over,and she ran.

I wish I could tell you that with every step she took sherealized she was born to do this forever, to run around the world and see thesunset from every cardinal point (yes, Forrest Gump reference), unfortunately,with every jog her fears were confirmed. Yes, the wind in her face feltamazing, there is a certain freedom when you run, but when her mindcame back to reality, she felt the pain in her left knee( she has a bad kneewhich she is always whining about), her neck felt tense and with it herstrength wanted to fade.

“The good Lord gave you a body that can stand most anything. It's your mind youhave to convince.” Her new motto, and for this reason, she didn’t stop. Everytime the pain would hit one of her bones, she went back to it, and keptrunning. She also thought her soul has gone through a lot of things she hated,that hurt, and she HAD to go through them, but in the end, she came outstronger, braver, wiser, so maybe if she could just endure and complete thisrun on the first day, it was just the start of a great race, where hopefullyshe will find her inner survivor, the fighter she knows lives inside. She kept running, with all her heartand her soul, even though she felt stupid and weak, she kept running, and she'll keep running, toignite a fire, from the inside out, that she’s afraid she has lost.