Marla's First 5k-- I did it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll try to be brief-- I'm emotional which makes me even more verbose than normal--

When I was a little girl, my dad bought a shiny, silver, vinyl "sauna suit," declaring that he was going to start running and get himself in shape. He was probably 40 give or take a year or two. He put it on, looked like Mork from Ork and ran once around our 1/4 mile block. Came home, took off the suit, said to my mother, "That's enough of that sh1t," and never ran again.

He is now pushing 300 pounds, has been sitting for the better part of three decades since retiring at 51 (7 years away from where I am now) has type 2 diabetes and his spine has fused together from arthritis and inactivity.

This, my friends, is the tree from which this apple fell. I have a 400 pound brother, another one over 300 pounds. I come from a family who always talk about needing to get in shape, but never do. A family that never challenges themselves or others-- "I'm okay, you're okay." A family where a 200 something pound sister can still feel good about herself because she's still the smallest one in her family. This is the blood that courses through me-- and this day I ran a 5k.

I can't tell you what an indescribable feeling it was. We showed up for registration and my 14 year old, whose birthday is today, decided to run, too last minute. My husband had also decided this past week to join me, plus they had some activities for younguns-- so most of the whole family was there-- with the exception of my eldest two. It was a beautiful, beautiful morning.

I'm surrounded by "RUNNERS," my friends. Thin, muscular ladies in their halter bras and short shorts, stretching and taking their warm up laps around the football field of the stadium. Warm up laps? Really? I want to finish this thing-- I have two goals-- FINISH and never stop running. I did not want to walk even one step. I didn't care about my speed. Didn't care where I finished in the crowd-- I wanted to finish running.

So I'm there in the crowd waiting for the starting gun. It goes off, and BOOM off goes the crowd. Me? I'm like the tortoise in Snow White who gets up the stairs to see the sleeping stranger in the Dwarfs beds just as everyone else is coming back downstairs. Slow and steady wins the race, right? So, I begin to plod along-- about five steps in the race, my husband gooses me. :laugh: I wanted to kill him.

Up, up, up the race began. The high school stadium where the race begins is in a pit-- nowhere to go but up. First mile and a half was various degrees of incline, beginning with quite steep-- oh em geee-- it was brutal. But, I never stopped. I'd been training for this, and throwing some hills in my workouts because I knew to expect this-- plus the wind was blowing, trying to blow this ol' vessel back downstream-- but, I never stopped.

I crossed the finish line at 32:30-- roughly what I run at home. I raise my arms victorious, collapse into my husband's bear hug and burst into tears. I did it, my friends. You can't know the euphoria.
My friends-- don't stop. Don't give up. I have nine kids, a history of lethargy and weight struggles, family demons blah, blah, blah-- and current stress out the wazoo. Still with all that, I ran a five, bloomin' K-- I'm so freaking proud of myself I could just spit.

If I can do it, anybody can-- don't give up.

To my wonderful black team and proud peeps-- your love and support is soooo incredible-- I'm blessed to have such support in my life here at home from my wonderful husband and from all of you--

God bless us all this day, my friends--

Oh, yeah-- didn't make it quite so brief-- sorry-- :ohwell: