It's Marathon Monday again and it's time to get back to my story after last week's interruption. You may remember I left off with the Couch to 5K program and getting "hooked" on running. While completing the nine week program, I actually started enjoying running for the sake of running which helped me complete the program and then continue running. After I completed the program at the end of June last year, I decided I should actually find a 5K to run. It had never been my goal in the beginning, but it seemed a natural next step in my journey.
So I found a local 5K for a cause near and dear to my heart: my first 5K was the Race for the Arts. It was a wonderful experience, so I decided to run two more, one being a 5K marking the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 and the other a 5K to raise money for ovarian cancer (a cause dear to a friend).The races were fun and rewarding, and I really could have done more, but with the holidays approaching we just didn't have the money for me to run in race after race. So I took a break from the races, but still continued to run 3-4 times/week.
But then the holidays hit and the days became shorter. I started running less. And then some major stress temporarily knocked my family off course. And you know what? I stopped running. I ran only once last December. Even though running had become a helpful stress reliever for me, when life got really stressful I stopped. I slipped back into the sedentary life that I had known for so many years. Definitely not my best choice, but that's what happened.
But life did settle back down and we got back on course. We bounced back from our temporary setback with a vengeance and life was grand! The new year had come and with it came new hope and the determination to make lasting changes. So in mid-January this year, I took a brave and life-changing step by attending my first Weight Watchers meeting..... [To Be Continued]
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