therunnerwithin

The [optional] topic for this weeks “The Fit Dish” link up is conversations with non-fitness enthusiasts.

When I first started my blog, it was a source for me to document my journey to my first half marathon and allow me to reflect on my progress down the road. It also allowed my family and close friends to keep up to date as I reached my goal.

When I first started posting to social media and checking in at the gym at 5:30am, it was for the accountability during my training.

I never intended for either the blog or the social media status to serve it’s purpose as an inspiration to others, but it has and I am not stopping with it now. In a fitness oriented community we need the support of one another to persevere when even the smallest doubt or thoughts of quitting appear in our minds.

The timing of this topic could not be more perfect as on Sunday I received two thoughtful “thank you” posts to my Facebook account. The first one being my friend Sam. She completed her first half marathon back in December and is training to run the Glass Slipper Challenge with me. We had just run 12 miles that morning and she has been struggling with a knee injury and has not been able to go quite a long distance in several weeks. She wanted to go out for 12 miles, and I was not going to let her down by allowing her to give up when the going got tough.

This does not mean I pushed her to run all 12 miles, or even the full 12 miles alone. Throughout our run I kept reminding her that she was doing a great job. Every mile marker we passed I asked her how she was feeling and every time her response came back with “Great!” or “I can’t believe I’ve made it this far.” She even admitted to me around mile 5 that she would have given up 3.5 miles ago had I not been with her. I continued to stick by Sam every mile and would remind her to let me know if she needed to stop or if she needed to take swap into a walk interval. It wasn’t until the last few miles that the knee started to give her some problems and we went into walking mode. Sam had hoped to accomplished the 12 miles under 3 hours and we did!

That same day another friend, we’ll call her K, had completed her first half marathon. The night before I left K an encouraging message to go out and enjoy each mile focusing on finish strong because you only ever run your first half marathon once. Later that evening she posted this on my Facebook page.

Yet support does not mean you should tell someone what they should and shouldn’t be doing right or wrong. If asked Ill offer my advice or what I’ve done, but also remind them that what works for me may not necessarily work for them.

Recently I posted on an 11 mile run I completed and how I took 9 minutes off my last 11 miles run over a month ago. A good friend, we’ll call her C, had posted this comment in response:

Sure, I did tell her something she should be doing in being patient, but sometimes people do need to be reminded that things take time. C and I carried on a conversation where she asked about my training and explained her situation and she was wanting to improve. I started off by telling her she was doing great and she was, so I wanted to be sure she knew she had that support. I let her know how my training first started out and how I was running the exact pace she was. We discussed things like the Jeff Galloway run/walk method and speed workouts to help her improve her endurance level.

I love how tight knit the fitness/running community is and I couldn’t think of a better community that I fit in more that this one 🙂

A special thanks to Jill Conyers at jillconyers.com and Jessica Joy at thefitswitch.org for hosting today’s The Fit Dish Link Up. Be sure to head on over to their pages to see what these ladies and several other bloggers had to say about today’s topic.