Running When They Say You Can’t
Watch me prove you wrong
It started because I was fat, my great love of running. Not to lose weight or anything so mundane, but to prove to all the people who said I didn’t belong in sports that I could have accomplishments in this arena. Not belong in sports? Sure, I always got picked last for kickball and dodgeball, but I did play eighth-grade and high school volleyball and tennis. The eye-rolls still happened and people were not lining up to pick me. I loved sports but ended up quitting that passion no matter how hard I worked. No matter how many early mornings there were spent as a kid going running in the dark and eating bananas.
I was always last.
Then came college. In one of my major classes, we were given the question of what it would take for us to run to the local movie theater about two miles away. Others asked for money — I asked for shoes. There were groans in the room when I said that. People were trying to talk me out of it, saying that it was much further than I thought. All this guff for a heartfelt answer to a hypothetical question.
I was pissed off.
I stayed that way for years, salty beyond belief at people judging my body.
Then I chose to do something about it.
