I went to bed last night with the burning desire to go for a run in the morning. “I’m going to do it” I told myself. I will get up in the morning and go for a run before Joe has to leave. Visions of the “before time” when I would run miles and miles for fun and alone time danced in my head as I listened to the office and fell asleep.

When I woke up, I was still determined. While I did linger in bed for a bit, I got up, got myself dressed found my headphones and set off. I was just going to start Couch to 5K back up, knowing that I was no where near where I had been. I started off with my five minute warm up walk and was feeling great. It was still dark out, and honestly, this is my favorite time to run, before the whole world wakes up. Suddenly the Couch to 5K shouted out “Let’s jog” and I was ready…

Until I absolutely wasn’t. My right knee hurt. My left foot hurt. my gait was all wrong. Everything was off. It was only a minute but it felt like an eternity. After the second or third time I decided to just walk for the rest of the 30 minutes.

Now, you may think this makes me a quitter. And up until last night around 10 pm. I would have one hundred percent agreed with you. But I was proud of myself. I stopped when something was painful (not uncomfortable, but actually painful) but I still finished out the exercise in some way instead of feeling intensely defeated and just heading home and throwing myself a pity party all day.

For the rest of my walk I forced myself to face some fast and hard truths about this situation. It has been MONTHS since I have run at all and YEARS since I have really run (as in not Couch to 5K with stops built in). The separation and divorce years were not good to me, both mentally and physically. If I am being completely honest, they broke me. It has literally taken me this long to try and attempt to put myself back together, and I’m not only to lie it is extremely hard. I feel like I lost all of myself, including the parts that I loved and I am just now feeling strong enough to try and get them back.

But it’s going to be an incredibly hard road. Just because you’ve done it once, doesn’t mean it’s easier the second time. I am almost the same weight as I was at my heaviest in 2013…a number I swore to myself I would never see again. When I really started running I was almost 40 pounds lighter than I am now. And when I was training for half marathons and marathons I was 60-70 pounds lighter. As much as I want to rush and skip steps just to try to be where I once was, I know this is not the answer. I need to take my time. I need to relearn the basics. I need to find the correct path, the one where it may be hard and treacherous, but I’ll come out stronger in the end.

I really feel that girl I once was is still in there, just waiting for the opportunity to come out and shine.

She is. I know she is. She’s just going to take a little while to do it. And that’s ok.