I've been feeling a bit emotional the last couple of days about the whole Run To Be 'thing'. It's weird I can't quite put my finger on why? I seem to swing from elation and focus to feeling a little bit overwhelmed with it all. I mean really who am I to be talking about running to complete strangers! Am I trying to make out I'm some sort of expert or athlete?! What if people think I am....and then they find out that actually I'm a middle aged woman with less than 3 years running experience, what then?
So last week I stood in a car park in Chingford in North East London and every time I looked up there was another person I didn't know walking towards me expectantly....and there we stood Simon, Liane and I ( The Run To BeTeam) and 14 people (who apart from a couple of them) I had never set eyes on before. It was a surreal experience and some of them looked as nervous as me! But do you know what...I think we pulled it off! It's strange because during that hour on a chilly November night I started to see some of what I have been dreaming about come alive. I realise that sounds dramatic and believe me I'm not normally prone to emotional outbursts, but this is what running does to me. It gives me confidence with one stride and challenges me to the point of suffocating doubt in the next. I want to help people who think they can't run, to run.......and run....and run.
When I first went for a run I wanted to give up so many times. Like the time I stood in an osteopath's treatment room in my underwear and he told me if I joined a running club I'd be considered the 'local fatty', the humiliation of that moment still makes me burn inside now. I heard myself telling him over and over again 'I know I'm not going to win any races but I just like to run'. I felt I had to justify why I wanted to do it and then qualify that with a 'but of course I'm not a real runner' type statement. I don't think I should have felt like that and no-one else should either.
So I know I need to hold my nerve and give this everything I've got and then see what happens.....so watch this space.
Lindsey x