Day 28: Thankful...and then some

Happy Thanksgiving to you! This week has been one full of ups and downs, stresses and reliefs, and a revisit to that high school moment of wanting to be in a club. You remember don't you? That one club you wanted to be in, but weren't sure if you "qualified" or would fit in or would be accepted. I was always under the impression that "club" meant that you had to meet a certain criteria to join. Sure there were clubs like the anchor club where you had to have a certain grade point average to get in (right? because I really don't know what it was I just know that I didn't have it). But in actuality, the definition of club itself simply states "a group of people with a common purpose."
Well Thursday morning, I wanted to be a part of a club. The Tupelo Running Club to be exact. They were meeting at 7am Thanksgiving morning for a run. A short, three mile run. I thought "hey, surely I can keep up for three miles." Plus, we decided to make this our registration date because the Princess Half is filling up quick, as compared to waiting until the run in December. So my goal for the last few weeks has been to do this run, (my first run in front of other people that I'm not in fact related to) and once I triumphed and saw how much progress I had made, that we would come home, sign up for the race, make our reservations, and bask in the glow of making another countdown to Disney calendar.
Thursday morning rolls around, we load the boys in the car and make our way downtown. As we get closer, I start noticing people running. Everywhere. From all directions. And they were running; running in sports bras, and the shorty shorts that make me nervous when I see men running in them. They were hardcore. I mean hard to the mother freaking core. And everywhere I looked, that's what I saw. Runners. Glorious hard bodied runners. And then I looked at myself in the mirror.... and my layers of clothes I had on to hide my jiggle spots. And I began to panic. And then we pulled up to the meeting spot. And then I really began to panic. Like, hard to the mother freaking core panic. Seriously, my husband has it on tape. I may or may not show it to you. I soon realized I was waaaay out of my league. This wasn't the "run 1 mile walk 1 mile" club, this wasn't the "Oh I want to lose a little bit of weight so I think I'll start jogging" club, this was THE TUPELO RUNNING CLUB biatch. These people were the people I aspired to be. But standing in the midst of them, I realized I was simply not one of them. Far from it. And I began to cry. Like, ugly face cry. I absolutely didn't want to get out of the car. Just like when I was 6 and my dad made me take swimming lessons and I sucked at it. I would scream and cry and hold on to the handle of the truck until he made me get out. I felt just like that little girl. I looked around at all the cool people and doubt not only crept in, it parked it's fat ass on my face and didn't budge. I tried to calm down and think about "what's the worst that can happen today? I can be the slowest and people will have to wait on me and I 'll be embarrassed and they'll be pissed, but it will come to an end and everyone will go home and eat their tofu turkey and I can go home to Mammie's pecan pie......LET'S DO THIS!"
I got out of the car and immediately found my shining light for the day, my dear friend Chuck. I had just read about him completing his first marathon using the Marathon Makeover program. I was so proud of him and even prouder to see him there. We had time to catch up before we started our run. I thought "ok, I can keep up with these people for three miles. Three miles I can do."
We started the run, and I hear Chuck say, "We're running the same course that we run for Gumtree."..................................................................................................
........................................................................................... The Gumtree that is a 10k
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Cussity cuss cuss. Cuss. My shins begin to hurt. I began to feel like I smoked three packs a day and weighed 200 pounds. I looked down at my watch .75 miles. Oh. my. god. I'm about to be a quitter. That big fat quitter that starts something and doesn't finish it. That quitter that blames everything on someone else. That quitter that can't look at herself in the mirror for weeks after she quits. It's not that I can't go six miles, but I had prepped my brain and body for just getting through three with these people. There was a huge difference in my mind. I wanted so bad to call the hubby to come get me. Especially when I turned on to the mile and a half stretch of McCollough Blvd. and saw that not only was I way behind everyone else, but there were cops.........holding up traffic..............waiting for me. Are you kidding me right now? The taxpayers of Tupelo would not be happy to learn about this execution of their funds. I watched as a man in a pair of those shorty short shorts who looked like he was a founding father of the running club have a convo with one of those said policemen. The convo probably went like this:
Policeman: We really need to open up this stretch of road. She's walking on the grass, do you think she'll be alright?
Running Club shorty shorts man: Yeah, I'll wait here for her. Thanks for keeping us safe. You really should go now and attend to the important business of being a police officer.
How I imagined that convo at the time:
Policeman: WTF, I thought this was the running club. I'm just going to go and arrest her for wasting my time and yours and for just being a dumbass in general.
Running club shorty shorts man: yeah, do it.
As I watched the police officers drive pass me (and not return my wave by the by) and I saw that the shorty shorts man was waiting for me at the top of the hill, I realized that indeed, the worst case scenario was going to happen today, and there wasn't a darn thing I could do about it. It was there I decided to just go. One foot in front of another. Oh there was no running. Nooo maam. The mental block I placed on my body before I ever got out of the car that day jinxed me from any type of program I had been doing for the last 6 weeks. I was a walker. And I walked the next 5 miles. Much to the chagrin of the Running Club men.
I'll spare you the mile 2-5 details other than my hubby and my boys were waiting for me at mile four and I surprisingly fought the urge to jump in and hightail it to a safe haven. As I reached the last mile, I had stopped crying, stopped moping, and was trying desperately to regain the focus I've had for the last month. And there he was. My knight in a sweaty green tee, my friend Chuck. He had finished, and came back to find me. He walked that last mile with me. And it was one of the best miles I've walked yet. He shared his stories with me, we talked about why we wanted to run, how it felt to achieve the goals we had set out to do. And he helped me to remember how far I've come, and why I started this in the first place. Thank you so much Chuck. You'll never know how much that meant to me.
We finished that 10k Turkey trot. And the real runners of Tupelo went home to their tofu turkeys. I went home to my butterball. And we registered for that Princess Half-Marathon. We made reservations for our Disney hotel. And  I was once again happy and hopeful and focused. And while I realized I don't quite have the grade point average to be a member of the Tupelo Running Club just yet, I've come suuuuch a long way. And maybe one day, by completing my goal of running a half-marathon, I can possibly join that club and actually keep up. And maybe even run in just a sports bra! (I know that's pushing it, but here's to hoping!)
Song of the Day: So You Had A Bad Day - Daniel Powter
Quote of the Day: "If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain." - Dolly Parton