YIKES!  I’m so excited.  Months and months ago, while I was training for my first half marathon, I connected online with another new runner and mother named Amy.  I was a new runner and mother, she’s a new runner and mother… and she followed my journey towards my first half marathon while she worked up to running her first 5k.

Amy is a blogger too – you can read her blog about life here at “So this is me”.

On August 17th of 2013, I posted a good luck message to her before she ran her first 5k!  Read about her fabulous race experience on her blog, here: http://faith324.blogspot.com/2013/08/i-did-it.html

Today, less than a year later, she’s running her first half marathon.

If you go back through her blog and look at her running posts before her first 5k, you’ll see her post about the challenges she faced.  Motivation.  Feeling tired.  Schedule conflicts and weeks she didn’t run much.

Right… and TODAY SHE RUNS HER FIRST HALF MARATHON.

This is incredible.  She went from doing Couch to 5k, and then STUCK WITH IT, and then believed that she could dedicate the time and energy and patience it would take to get all the way up to the starting line of a HALF MARATHON.  (For new runners, this means running for over two to two and a half hours AT LEAST.  Which is crazy.)

No matter what happens today, the work is done – she DID it.  She believed in herself and put in the long hours for the long runs, and she got to the starting line with her family there to cheer her on.

I am completely in love with the process of transformation that happens when people start running and then believe in themselves that they can go the distance.  For the rest of her life, she will know that she had the courage to believe that she could accomplish something that sounded crazy, and the strength of will and dedication to follow through and run for longer and longer until 13.1 was doable.  Even though she’d run her first 5k less than a year before.  The knowledge that you have that kind of strength sticks with you when you face life’s challenges… and she’s earned it.

In November of last year, Amy wrote this:

“But 6 months ago the thought of me running at all was laughable.  So who knows.  I will keep running one step at a time and see where the road takes me.” -Amy 

Maybe it’s because I’ve had the same thoughts… traveled the same road… been transformed the same way by the dream of 13.1, but reading those words and knowing that TODAY she is at the starting line for her first half marathon… it literally brings tears to my eyes.

Amy – you are awesome.

I hope Amy has an amazing and wonderful race, and I can’t wait to read her race re-cap of how she feels after she accomplishes this new and challenging distance.

For all you new runners… think about what a beautiful gift it is that Amy can look back at her posts where she wrote about being tired (but running anyway) or taking some time off from running for the holidays (but getting back into it) or heading out in the freezing cold (and still making it a few miles).  Now she can remember all those things she overcame to still stick with running AND become a long distance runner.

If you want it… if you dream about it… if you think it would be amazing to have accomplished it… then look at your medical history for any reasons you shouldn’t, ramp up slowly, and go read some running blogs of people who are training for their first big race.

They felt the discouragement you feel, the exhaustion, the guilt from taking breaks… None of these things meant they couldn’t do it, or wouldn’t do it, or shouldn’t do it.  They just meant they felt even more accomplished when they overcame them and made it to that start line.

Amy – cheers to you.  You’re an inspiration to us all 🙂