I hate running. I hate it so much that my life is divided into BR and AR.

Before Running, and After Running.

BR: Hiking and cycling and good, old-fashioned one-foot-on-the-ground- walking were my regular go to workouts.

Someone once told me that hiking was their personal version of hell —and that’s how I feel about running—so I could relate.

BR: I did one run a year—our local 5k Santa Shuffle, where I shuffled more than ran, but got to dress like Santa and there was free beer at the end.

BR: there was no COVID. Outbreak was a bad Dustin Hoffman movie from the early 90s. Pandemic was a word that I thought the newscasters made up because epidemic didn’t sound extreme enough.

It was all of this— the start of the pandemic and the general sucking away of everything that made life interesting that led me to running.

BR: I have friends who run. I even have a friend who did an IronMan (I always knew there was something wrong with her). They were very encouraging.

I’ve come to think that misery just loves company.

I have more friends who don’t run, and so I figured that they just knew something that my running friends did not.

Specifically, that running is torture.

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I decided that if I was going to do this, I needed a running goal. Running was going to be really, really challenging for me.

I chose the runDisney half-marathon. Actually, that’s a lie. I chose the 10k. My husband said “let’s do the half.” And I foolishly agreed.

That’s 13.1 miles, for the uninitiated.

Step 1 was to download Jeff Galloway’s excellent training program. Mostly it was excellent because it included as much walking as I wanted. Plus, he is the official runDisney running guy, so I figured he would be motivating, but not yell at me or encourage me to “push through the pain”. I am not motivated by anyone who yells at me.

The training program had me start with a 5 minute run. A “baseline” with which to lay out the remainder of my torture.

I mean training.

I ran for 5 minutes. In yoga leggings, sneakers that were a size too small for me, and mittens.

I was not the picture of athletic grace.

AR: I didn’t die. And because I didn’t die when I ran for 5 minutes, Jeff Galloway’s training program assumed I was then capable of running 7 MILES on my first “long easy run.”

Long.

“Easy”.

Run.

Let me reiterate that BR, the farthest I had ever run was 3 miles, dressed like Santa Claus.

I began “training.” I set the modest goal of a 2:30 half marathon. I learned words like hill-repeat, speed repeat, goal-pace repeat, and quickly realized that the key to improving, apparently, was to repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

So I did. On Tuesday and Thursday and Saturday (but mostly Sunday because Saturdays are too nice to waste on running).

Jeff Galloway’s program encourages you to run, walk, and then run, in whatever time intervals you choose. I started with a 30 second run, and 30 second walk. Over and over and over. 30 seconds of counting down until I could walk again.

AR: I spent 9 months run-walk-running in preparation for the 2021 Disney Half Marathon. I ran in unbearable heat. In rain. In cold that was so cold, my eyelashes froze. I learned to run on ice, on trails, through snow and in traffic.

Friends told me to run races to keep it interesting. So I “ran” races. 5k. 10k.

I never stopped counting every step. My knees hurt. My toes hurt. I overpronate (another new word that means I run like a penguin), and I will spare you the detailed description of what running does to create callouses on feet.

Let’s just say I swapped all of my sandals for sneakers.

On the upside, I was extremely hydrated, because I discovered that I can’t run and drink water simultaneously, and so drinking was the perfect excuse to stop running.

I made up games in my head “I only have to run for three more songs”, “I only have to run to that stop sign”. “I only have to run until I count to 100.”

And gradually,

week by week,

I realized that actually…

Nope, I still hate running.

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But slowly (no, seriously, so slowly) my mileage improved. My time improved. I was feeling ready. I did a “test race” where I had to run 10 miles. Further than I had ever run in my life.

It poured that day of my longest race ever. Monsoon-level rain. But I did it. And I wasn’t even last! I felt amazingly happy.

Amazingly happy it was over, that is.

As a consolation prize, I did feel ready for the Disney half.

And then.

Like, everything else in early 2021, out of an “abundance of caution”, the race was cancelled.

I was disappointed beyond belief, and even more than disappointed, I was angry that this meant that I needed to continue to train until this race was out of my system.

Another year. Of rain. And snow. And heat and blisters and sweaty socks and chafing and laundry.

So much running laundry.

So I kept running.

And I got injured. Do you know what a piriformis is? Neither did I.

And then I got better and I ran again.

I decided to run a local St. Patrick’s day half-marathon. To get it over with. To remember why I was doing all the training. And to face the fear that I might not be able to do it.

It was AWFUL. I abandoned everything I had done in training. All of my run-walk-run training, out the window and I just ran. Without walking, without stopping.

For 9 miles.

And then I started to cry. And I didn’t stop until I crossed the finish line.

At 2:38.

8 minutes past my goal.

I really hate running.

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So I stopped running.

I took a whole month off.

It was glorious! My knees loved me again. My bike was happy. I was happy.

But those 8 minutes lingered in the back of my head. Taunting me.

To shut them up, I decided to start Jeff Galloway’s training program all over again, and register for the 2022 Disney half-marathon.

(I didn’t know that taking a month off is basically like starting from “I-have-never-run-before”, but I digress).

After another year of torture, I finally ran the 2022 Disney half-marathon.

It took me 3 hours, but I didn’t care, because I was dressed as Orange Bird, and plus—Mickey Mouse

People keep telling me it doesn’t seem like I hate running.

I assure you, I do.

But more than that, I enjoy pushing myself to do something that is really, really challenging for me.

And I love the medals.

So in a moment of stupidity (pretty sure there was wine involved, too), I registered for the 2023 Disney Marathon.

That’s 26.2 miles.

I don’t even like to drive that far.

Come along on my marathon journey. I start Tuesday.

Maybe you can hate running too.

Happy trails!