First week done…17 to go.

This is (was) me.

Obviously I’m in New York.

September of 2009. I’m at my heaviest (I think) so topping the scales at 270 pounds but since I didn’t weigh myself I can’t be sure that it’s not more than that. I stopped visiting the doctor’s because I didn’t like to get on the scale. I didn’t like that I had morbidly obese written in my file. If I didn’t pay attention to what the exterior world was telling me then I could ignore what the interior world was telling me.

In a few short months from when this picture was taken I would decide that what the interior world was telling me was no longer okay. That being obese was no longer okay. That being lazy was no longer okay. That watching the world pass me by when I could stand up and do something about it was no longer okay. It was time to do something and do it like my life depended on it…because it did.

The reason I decided to put this picture up is because I started marathon training this week. In 17 (short) weeks I’m going to step up to a starting line that back when this picture was taken would never had crossed my mind. It’s hard to look at pictures of my former self and not feel a pang of guilt that I waited so long. Being 40 and deciding that being 110 pounds overweight is no longer acceptable does quite a number on your mental stability (or instability). After a lifetime of berating myself into believing I can’t, I had to do something I didn’t know how to do: learn to say I can.

If you had asked me back in September of 2009 on that ferry looking at the Statue of Liberty if I could run, I would have made some knee jerk comment like “oh sure if I was being chased”.

Being chased…

Running away from something.

Out of fear.

Because my life depended on it.

Week one of training is done and my muscles are sore. I’m not used to running multiple days in a row. I’ve never had a training schedule. I’ve never had a certain amount of miles I had to get in on a specific day. This week is about easing into the idea that what I’m doing is real. That I have made the commitment to follow through. That on May 20th at the end of the day I will gently place my first marathon medal with all the others I have collected over the last two years. I don’t run because I am being chased. I don’t run because I am trying to run away from something. I don’t run out of fear.

I am chasing.

Running towards.

No fear.

Because my life depends on it.