Face first!
I'm so sorry...to make up for it, this will probably a big giant blog entry to bring us all up to speed. (all as in whomever reads these!)
Firstly, I have been maintaining my runs on a weekly basis, with two shorts runs during the week and a longer, goal oriented run every weekend (goal=distance). This past Sunday, as I haphazardly reported, I ran 4.5 miles and with a respectable newbie pace. Something that blows my mind. Tomorrow (or Sunday) I will be working to push past that marker...and maybe...gasp...hit the 5 mile mark.
I have also decided that I really do need to find another 5K to run early in the 2013 year...contemplating one of the March St Patty Day runs. I think its great practice for me to get used to race day routine. And now that I know I can run more than 3.1 miles and not fall down (ha! I wasn't so sure a couple months ago!), it will be a wee bit less worriesome for me and I can focus on pace in those races.
This love for running is really something that shocks me still. And I mean that. If this time last year you had told me I would have already run my first 5K AND looking to run more AND loving every minute of it...I would have told you, frankly, you are NUTS. But now I realize, this is just a further testament to the fact that we never really know ourselves. There was not even a smidgen of a sign in me that I would end up a runner (even though my neighbor this morning called me a "jogger"...grrrr!). I could not have known or ever expected it, and yet here I am.
For the month of December I have been posting on Instagram each day "The December Days of Why I Run". And its been a challenge to really harness the reasons, the real concrete "why" of why I do it. I find that for me it's really such a psychological/spiritual drive to do it, its SO truly mental, that to date, I haven't once listed a physical benefit in my December Days of Why I Run yet (even though there are tons of physical benefits...and I seem to be getting a bit of runner leg definition, which i'm lovin'). 
All I know is that running, especially over the past month, has been my hero. It has saved me from just completely breaking down, emotionally and physically. It is my meditation in a time when normally I couldn't get my mind to quiet down and let me rest. I feel RELAXED after a run in a time when relaxing is just not an option for my nervous system. They say "love the run" - and now i'm starting to understand what it means. Truly. I love the run because it doesn't take more than it gives. I love the run because it loves me. Unconditionally. It lifts my mood and builds my confidence. I feel lucky and blessed to be healthy enough everyday to step outside and push my body to go. And succeed. So many times my brain tries to tell me, time to stop, but the legs are still pounding the pavement and my arms are still pumping along side me and the sun is shining and there is no good reason to stop. So I tell my brain to shut up and off I continue to go...and will keep going.
I'm a runner.
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