The Evolving Homemaker

Sometimes I really don’t understand what possesses me.  It is as if my cells decide on an answer before my brain does, not giving me any time to really take it all in, evaluate the alternatives, type up my pro’s and con’s list…you know, otherwise known as ‘talk myself out of’.

Funny…the timing couldn’t be more impeccable.

I am a member of a Facebook fan page to an amazing magazine called Get Born, a magazine that considers itself the ‘Uncensored Voice of Motherhood’, which I find so enlightening, refreshing, and something to celebrate really.  They posted this question a few days ago:

For the first time in 10 years of really wanting to, I think I’m going to get a garden planted with my kids helping. Actually, they’re really driven this year, too. It’s the first time in a decade I finally have the emotional, mental and physical bandwidth to take it on. Is there anything you REALLY want to do, but jus…t struggle making it a reality? ~Heather

And here is my response:

being a ‘runner’. lol. I would like to make it a reality…but somehow or other I fall off the wagon…only to start over again…see how many 5K’s I can get to this summer…

Yeah.

So when my sister Facebook’ed yesterday that she was running the Army 10 miler in D.C. in October and would anyone like to join her…my response was “anything over 5 miles is in need of a bicycle”.  That wasn’t a joke either, I was dead serious.

Then she calls today.  My sister who is eight years my senior, mind you.  She did an amazing job at a running race yesterday, coming in fourth in her age group, in a run heavily loaded with ‘racers’.  You know, the intimidating types that make you question why you even got out of bed at 6 AM, shoving in a banana in your mouth as you try to get dressed in the dark so as not to wake your family.  She finished fourth in her age group…with those people.

She proceeds to mention, ever so casually, that our other sister is also doing the 10 miler.  That other sister is ten years my senior.  And she doesn’t run at all.  Not yet anyway.  Well maybe she has started, but this is her first run event actually running…ever.

What the hell is a girl to do?

I said, “Count me in.”

Just like that.

“Count me in.”

What am I crazy?  Ten miles?  I wasn’t trying to be funny when I said that is a distance for a bike, I was setting the record straight.  Ten miles is not for feet.  And certainly not at a pace in which one will be breathing heavily.  For well over an hour.

There are moments in life when you know your spirit needs a focus.  Moments that draw you off the wall you spend so much time trying to blend in with, and out into the game.  Moments when you need a sense of achievement, above and beyond a successful day of laundry.  Moments when your body speaks before your mind can stop it, because it knows what you really long for.

I was giddy and excited and nervous and very much aware I could be crawling across the finish line.  But I also knew it was something I was going to do.  A race.  With a plane ride included.  With both of my sisters.  It is just the kind of adventure this gal is looking for.

Call me crazy, or call me evolving, but today was absolutely one of those moments.

Spill it: What challenge is it that would scare you to death…but at the same time you secretly long for?  What is keeping you from attempting it?

Posted April 12th, 2010 under Miscellaneous. Tags: Army 10 miler, beginning running, training for a run
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