Guest Post: Running for Sanity

When I broke my wrist I sent out a request for guest bloggers and one of the first people to agree was Ashley. After reading her post I was inspired despite my cast to get active again. 

When I turned 29 I had an emotional break down. I looked in the mirror and saw my youth disappearing. I don’t want to offend anyone, but after two children, I had a “mom” body. I had been using my title of mommy as an excuse to let myself go.


I made a rather rash decision. I was going to start running. I was going to run 3 miles in 30 minutes on my 30th birthday. Weird, I know. I have always thought of running as a punishment, but I figured I had a year to train, so it was doable. I began the Couch to 5k program everyone raves about. I had to repeat weeks because I skipped or I thought it was too hard and it seemed like I would never get it right. But, on my 30th birthday I met my goal. It was hard, but I did it.


Something clicked in me. I realized that I could run, but I was going to have to take this serious. I invested in a real training program and I started posting my weekly running schedule on the fridge. Everyone knew that this was my time. Mommy was going to run, no matter what. This spring I started running local benefit 5k races. I am proud to say, I won my age division in the last 5k I ran, a few weeks ago, with a time of 25:44.


Oh and I also lost 28 pounds in this process and gained a huge amount of confidence. I ran 8.5 miles yesterday in a hour and a half. If you would have told me a year ago that I was going to be able to run for 90 minutes straight, I would have laughed hysterically.


Let me leave you with this: you can accomplish whatever you want, in any area of your life. Don’t sell yourself short. Don’t stop because it is hard. As the famous saying goes:

Ashley from The Ederington Family
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