It All Started With A Mouse

January 11, 2012, marks the 8 year anniversary of my marathon debut. In January of 2004 I ran my first marathon. The Walt Disney Marathon to be exact.

How things have changed from that first marathon. How I have changed.

First I have lost about 50 pounds! This is a significant amount of weight. It was a battle to shed these pounds. I had to change how I coped with stress! I used to use food as a coping mechanism. When things got tough, I ate. That did not work. I only felt bad about myself and gained weight. I started teaching myself to deal with stress in a healthy manner. Run! Running is my therapy. I had to decide which was more important... That brownie and how good it tasted, or being fit and running faster. I decided I wanted to run faster.

That marathon ended with a time of over 5 hours. I was proud that I finished, but felt I could do better..... However in the weeks to come, my aspirations of getting faster had to be put on the back burner. Immediately after I ran my first marathon, Matt and I flew back to Charlotte and went to Presbyterian Hospital. Matt's dad had a major stroke and was dying. We went straight to the hospital and for the next week, Matt lived at the hospital. Ernie, Matt's dad died a week later. This was a hard blow. Very unexpected. Very shocking. In comparison to Ernie's death, my marathon was not important so I never got excited about my accomplishment. It was like the marathon never happened.

Boston will be my 15th marathon. From the 1st marathon at Disney to my 14th at Thunder Road, I have gone from 160 pounds to 113 (as I write this). I have gone from a 12 minute per mile marathon pace to an 8:30 minute per mile marathon pace. I have grown closer to God! I have been privileged to see His mighty hand work in my life. I have survived the childhood years of my children and now I am entering the wonderful teen years. I have grown closer to my wonderful husband and have even helped him train and run 4 marathons.

I thank and blame Ron Horton for this madness. He trained me and Bree Horton for the first marathon.... Then he signed up and ran it with us. I did not understand what that meant at the time... But now I understand that he had to put his training (and budget) on hold so Bree and I could be successful. He made the marathon fun and took a ton of pictures!! So now I can remember it.

I like who I have become because of running....