WHEN ANNIE BECAME A RUNNER

                                                   


In the fall of 1979 I was 46 years old and feeling down cast.  I can't explain to you, my blog Friends, why. A wonderful husband, sons, and friends had I. Yet I felt fat, bored and boring. Depressed.

One theater  movie and one made for TV movie  shook me up and  started me on a new road...running. 

The way I was feeling at the time, I saw Rocky as a character slightly like me. We felt like losers.  It didn't seem possible that Rocky could get himself in shape enough to become a champion boxer. I was most impressed with the running scenes and especially when he ran up the front steps of a state building with his raised arms waving jubilantly. 

Could I, a forty-six year old homemaker, begin a running program, myself....well...maybe....
 Then one night I saw a made for TV movie, SEE HOW SHE RUNS, released in 1978; it also made a huge impact on me. Joanne Woodward played a forty year old divorced school teacher. who physically and emotionally was sort of in the place where I was. In the movie the character began for the first time in her life (just like me) to run. 
She got better and better and better and eventually ran in the Boston marathon.  Both of these movie characters  were victors; that is what I wanted- INTENDED  to become. 

So I announced to Ben, the boys, and all the family and friends  that I was going to start running every day. They thought, "Right??!!" I went to Target and got a cute navy blue warm up suit (long pants) almost identical to this one and a pair of running shoes.      What else could I possibly need to become a runner??!!  Right?!

This is a good time to mention that I had NEVER been athletic. When soft ball teams were chosen in gym, I was always the last to be picked!! 

It is one mile from our house to Overton High School. This would be my 2 mile course.
 So the very next day around dusk I started out...and suddenly my lungs began to hurt the way they had up in the higher mountains in Colorado.

 So I started walking. Then I would alternate between running and walking until I finally got back home. What could I do? I couldn't give up after buying my running wardrobe. 

So the next night I alternated again, then the next night, then the next... my lungs quit hurting. Then after three weeks I ran all the way to the high school before I had to alternate again. Whoo hoo. 

Then after a few more days I ran the entire course of two miles without stopping. When I ran into our house, my arms were lifted up like Rocky's in total rejoicing.

I ran 6 miles a day 7 days a week for many years. I can't tell you how the experience lifted me up, up, up. Without dieting I returned to my teenage weight.  I thanked the Lord every day for giving me the gift of running.  I felt peppy. I even ran in several Memphis 10 K races. I had a shirt on from one of those races when I was running through Wreck Beach, I told you about recently. I was 51 here finishing a race.

So I thought you might like to hear about this. Many of you women in your forties, in particular, may be feeling  the way I did.  You can find SOMETHING, not necessarily running, but something that can help your life the way running did mine.

 Do I still run?  No. I am 79. But I ran often well into my sixties...and found that the eyes of a runner view the world at just the right speed.
 

All for now, Love, annie.    God is good.
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