the hard times remind me to recognize the easier moments in life

I'm really having a hard time getting myself up and out there running this week. I think it might be because I don't have any runs lined up anytime soon. I'm thinking about running a 5k in a week with Katherine, just to get myself back into it. (first, I have to convince Kath to do it, though.) OR, there is a race this Saturday, a 5.2k (random), but I don't have anybody to run it with. So that's a decision I need to make soon. I just really like races, I guess. It helps me to have goals to keep going.

So anyways, today I got myself out and went on a run. Yay for me. It was a plan to run for 6 miles and the goal was to try to pace it out pretty well. I noticed in some of the video and pictures from Disney Marathon  Weekend that I take really short strides and that I don't really lift my feet when I run. I feel like if I put some effort into my stride, I might be able to easily speed my pace up a lot. So I worked on that and was doing pretty well for the first 3 miles or so.. then the pain started to set in.

So, I ran about three and a half miles and then walked a little less than three miles.

I'm just frustrated that I've set this major goals for myself and I really want to get myself in the best shape of my life this year and it's so difficult when I have major pain in my body. I understand that I'm [still] overweight and that I have to give myself time to allow my body to adjust to what I want to do. I just feel like this is something I've been working on for two and a half years... and in that time I've run 8 half marathons, 2 full marathons, and 2 5ks. Why should it still be so rough?

I know that it's just one step in front of the other, but in some ways it feels like so much more than that. It feels like my journey should be moving faster than it has and it is frustrating. I don't know anymore... I want to be a runner.

I just still feel like I'm that obese girl who drinks a case of Mountain Dew every week. I know I've come a long way since then, but it really just feels like

I guess I'm just struggling today.
Tomorrow may be better. I hope.

I know that today's run was rough, BUT I kept moving. I know that I have come a long way in my journey. I know that it is the little moments in life that get me through. It's just hard to look at things through that perspective sometimes.

So far: 66.1 miles/19 days
To go: 933.9 miles/347 days