I’ve tried (and failed) to get into running multiple times. Should have realized I was a sprinter all along but alas, realized it at the ripe old age of 26.
In elementary school the bullies couldn’t catch me if they tried to make a go for me.
In middle school I was urged to try out for cross country/track but alas, I got cut because I was in the middle of an eating disorder mess.
In high school I couldn’t try out for track because I tried out for academic games in 9th grade and made Varsity as well as was made captain from the get-go there so I was a geek not a jock, as much as I hate to stereotype. Was told to give it a shot but didn’t want to put aside my crowning glory as far as extracurriculars went. (I did play JV volleyball though and my serves were killer!)
College? I went to UPenn for college. That’s right… PENN RELAYS ARE HELD THERE. My roommate freshman year talked me into going to watch and I was amazed. I thought seeing a sub-50 seconds 400m run by some of the guys was one of the most beautiful uses of the human body I’ve ever seen. But UPenn was a division 1 school and everybody was so competitive I was too scared to even try, because these were like… pros or something.
The summer before grad school (2012) I tried to do Couch 2 5k and couldn’t make it past week 4 no matter what I tried. I stopped when grad school started and that’s when my health went downhill. Anxiety, depression, fractured my spine to the point where I was in a medical corset for months, not being able to do much physically, etc. Basically, my fitness hit rock bottom by the time I finished grad school. Body fat? 39%. OBESE. See the before + after on my blog for pics.
When I could FINALLY do stuff again I started walking. That turned into jogging and roughly a year ago, I did a 15 minute mile. I was so proud of myself! I didn’t run a mile since I was a teenager and I was 25 at that point. That soon became dull so I downloaded couch 2 10k, figuring out to be a bit more ambitious than before, and that’s when things changed. I started to want to eat clean, and once I completed the couch 2 5k part of it, I realized I didn’t care for long steady state cardio… I just wanted to be super fast. So I did some research and discovered speedwork. That became my favourite workout of the week and by May 2015, I had a 7 minute mile and 23% body fat. Less than a year and I was twice as fast and almost half my fat was gone. I felt invincible.
Being in education, I have summers off and was nervous about sticking to running while on holiday during the summer. Realizing 5ks and 10ks just weren’t my cup of tea so I found a series of track races and having NO idea what I’d be good at, I went in for the 400m and the 800m. Figured it was the cusp between sprints and mid-distance so I could see where my talent was. LOVED the 400m, hated the 800m, and also tried the 100m as a joke because “it’s so short, I’m sure I have the energy�.
Wound up LOVING it, and my time was illogical when compared to my 400m and 800m, but in a good way. Clearly I had some potential as a sprinter. So I spent most of that summer playing around at a high school track, even being able to clear hurdles and decided that, as silly as it felt to start track at age 26, my inner 13 year old, that girl who got cut from the team thanks to an eating disorder, really wanted me to do this and I just had to answer to her. Nevermind that most of my “adult� friends think I’m nuts and get told to do easier things for exercise whenever an Instagram photo of the track makes it’s way to Facebook, nevermind that I get questioned about “why don’t you switch to long distances, there’s more a scene for that?� by most other adult runners, nevermind the notion that I should do something more feminine like pilates or dancing as my parents keep telling me. Nope. I found something I was good at, and I was going to bloody well stick to it.
I’m on a team now (well, 2 teams given my life flip flops between 2 countries) and am primarily racing the 100m, 200m, and 400m this season. Sure, my times are hardly impressive at the moment but they’ll just keep getting better because I’m not gonna let myself quit. And yes, I can hurdle too. I’m just a badass like that. ;)

The PRs.
The speed.
The adrenaline.
Getting to spend more $$$ on track spikes than Jimmy Choos.
What I see in the mirror when I take my clothes off.
Knowing that I've pushed my body to it's limits today... but a month from now that's no longer going to be my limit.