[All images in this post by the amazing Jody Mack Photography in Charleston, SC. Thank you, Jody!!!!]

Oh wait. *I* said that. Seriously, WHAT was I thinking?!

NOTE: There’s a long-winded post following, but as part of my Pinkle Toes 10 Year celebration, I want to invite all of my friends and clients to join me in the 5th Annual Fight Like a Girl 5K on October 16th, 2016. I have team (Pinkle Toes Photography) AND from now through 9/14, you can get $5 off your registration. If you join my team, I don’t think you need to use the offer code, but if it asks for one, try EARLYBIRD. I would be more than honored if you and even your family would come run or walk this race with me. I know it’s a short window for that discount code, but it’s my hope that you’ll just impulse sign up with me and you won’t have time to talk yourself out of it. If you’ve never done one before, what a great time to start! I promise I’m going to be taking it easy, by the way, as this run is fresh off the heels of the Brooklyn Half Marathon the week before ;-).

Mkay, now for the post (oh, if you’re looking to update your running playlist, I’ve shared mine below!)…

So I’ve been talking off and on here about some big changes that I’ve made in my life over the last 1.5 years (barre and yoga) and I will admit to you on here I made those changes with the hopes of NOT having to run. But as I progressed in barre, I realized I was still missing something and once again inspired by my friend Leah, I decided to try to take up running. I guess that was Feb/March of 2015? I used to (half-heartedly) run cross country track in high school so I thought this would not be a problem for me. I guess I forgot how LONG ago that was, because just starting out trying to go one mile was a HUGE challenge for me. I was totally crushed to realize how difficult this was going to be for me.

After the first week or so of trying to run 1-2 miles a couple of days, I was pretty much done. But blast it if my friend Kate didn’t somehow convince me that it would be a wonderful idea for me to sign up to run a flippin’ HALF MARATHON (3M in January of this year). I really don’t remember what she said to sway me, but I did and *then* I used peer pressure to convince some other pals AND my sister (who has just done AMAZING things with her running) and even my 60-year-old super woman MOTHER to run it with me.

But this post is not about the half marathon. And it’s not about how wonderful running is because honestly this summer, it hasn’t been very wonderful for me *at all*. Instead, this post is about a few of the lessons running (or trying to run) has taught me over the course of 19 months:

1. Know your limits and work up to your miles gradually. I really didn’t think I would have to “learn” to run…human beings all know how to run, right? It’s like walking, but faster. Duh. And my super Type A (read: competitive) personality simply would not let this go and so I tried to push myself too far and too fast resulting in…
2. Injuries (they suck). So, on day one, I went out and bought the cutest running shoes I could find. Turns out, they weren’t actually designed for running, nor were they the correct size (too small), and I wound up with a stress fracture almost immediately. I did what everyone says NOT to do on an injury and tried to simply “run through” the pain and sure enough, that just made the stress fracture take even longer to heal. I went through two other pairs of shoes before I finally found ones that worked for me, but unfortunately, because I continued to push myself much too hard, thinking I needed to make up for lost time, I spent literally month after month (up until just this summer) painfully injured in one way or another. Which leads me to…
3. Foam rolling saves lives! Okay, maybe not literally, but close enough to me. Honestly, foam rolling looked pretty stupid to me and I didn’t see how that was supposed to be helpful with injury prevention until I (yet again) broke rule #1 and jumped from 8 miles to 12 miles with nothing in-between and completely messed up my IT band on both sides. Folks, I wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on my worst enemies. And it takes *forever* to heal. I ended up having to run my very first half marathon knowing that at any moment, that pain was going to come back, and sure enough, around mile 7-8, it pretty much brought me to my knees. I truly didn’t think I would be able to finish that race. I truly don’t know how I did. I truly wish that I hadn’t because it wasn’t until probably 4 months after where I could run even 2 miles pain-free. I finally broke down and bought a foam roller and let me tell you that it is my best friend and I spend time with it religiously. Also let me tell you that it was NO picnic when I first started foam rolling. It was incredibly painful and only just now after using it at least once a day (about 5 min.) consistently for 8 months do I not feel pain that makes tears well in my eyes. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it? But it truly is worth it. I was pretty much convinced that my very short running career was totally over and I would never be able to run without pain, but I’ll have you know, I did a 10K Sunday and I was totally pain free!
4. You will PR quickly and frequently when you first start and that feels amazing…until you stop PRing. Some of you may have read about my recent blah runs on my Instagram feed (here and here). I was really tempted to not post those things because I don’t like to be negative and whiney and really, who wants to show their dirty laundry online? But let’s keep it real: I’ve put in hundreds of miles on my feet and not every run is going to be exhilarating. A fast run isn’t necessarily a successful run. A challenging run isn’t necessarily a failed run. And something else–and this is not meant to be discouraging in any way–but it never gets easier. The first 3 miles of any run are always super tough to me and that was tough for me to accept at first…I thought after doing this for a few months, I would just leap through all of my runs like a graceful gazelle. Sadly, that is not so, lol. This week, I’m pretty sure I reached the peak of running geek-dom when I started listening to running podcasts *while* running, but it’s been a wonderful, refreshing change and very so inspiring to hear that ALL runners, no matter how long they’ve been running or how far they’ve run, have had the same ups and downs as I’ve experienced. Knowing this encourages me to seek new motivations to run even after I’ve met certain goals. And to be kinder to myself, leading to…
5. After each run, take time to be grateful in your running and to yourself. As shallow as it sounds, I started out running merely to lose weight, but now, I’m *this* close to just getting rid of the scale in our house because being skinny just doesn’t mean that much to me any more. I want to be strong. I want to be healthy. I want to be happy. I want to be challenged. I want to be persistent. I want to win all the things. I want to fail and be forced to learn from those mistakes and try again. I want to properly appreciate this ability I have to run at this point in my life and I plan to take advantage of it as long as I am physically able. We end barre class by thanking our bodies and yoga with thanking ourselves and one another, so why shouldn’t we do the same when running? A new habit I am incorporating into each of my runs is to spend at least a couple of minutes at the end on these thoughts:
   1. This run is done and I’m glad I did it!
   2. I’m grateful for the opportunity to run. It is a privilege.
   3. Thanks to my body for working so hard and to my mind for supporting the journey.

And there you go, my thoughts on my running journey thus far. These may not apply to everyone, but I wanted to share them just in case it might be the push needed to inspire someone to keep moving even when they feel frustrated (“Forward is forward,” right, Kate?). Feel free to share any words of wisdom you have in the comments or if you can relate to anything I’ve written here, let me know! If you want to follow along with my ups and downs, visit #runpinklerun on Instagram.

I’m starting to get more excited about my next half marathon in Brooklyn in October! It’s so out of character for me to go out of town *just* for that, but I am so blessed to get to see and run it with my friend and inspiration, Lena! Oh, while I’m on that topic, I know I already mentioned a few people who have been super inspiring to me and there are a few more that come to mind: Regan, Pete, Laura G., Minnette (or should I say, Marathon Manet?), Elicia, Melonie & Zeke, and oh, my word, so many more that I just know I’m leaving out. They honestly may not even know how much they affected me, but they have and I just want to say thank you!

Again, I would LOVE to get to run the FLAG 5K with you next month, so please, please, please consider signing up. I was drawn to this particular race because of Lindsay’s story — melanoma devastated our family and the families of several other people I know. I very much appreciate what the H.O.P.E fund does for the families of cancer patients.

And finally, some of my favorite running songs! Be warned that I tend to get a bit angry while running (sometimes, you just have to) so many of these are NSFK!!! Any more I should add to this list?