During my teenage years, my family constantly told me that I was an angry person. And looking back and even now, I consider myself a very angry person. I’m a lot better at keeping it inside or controlled, but that doesn’t mean it’s gone. AND I more often am angry at myself not people around me, but I don’t think that makes it any better.

I started running/walking when covid hit and eventually I stopped until I picked it back up in 2023 because I had a goal of hitting 10,000 steps a day. Hitting 10,000 steps a day takes A LOT of time when you are just walking because it’s relatively close to 4-5 miles. So running made that goal a little bit easier to hit. Then at the end of 2023 my sister decided she wanted to run a half marathon since her boyfriend (now fiancé) had done one. She is pretty competitive in that way, but I love it because it challenges me to step out of my comfort zone all the time.

We trained pretty hard (I would say) and we did pretty well for our first long distance race. For me, running became a monumental outlet for working through my feelings. When I was sad, I would run and it would always make me feel better. When I was happy, I would run and it would humble me and bring me back down to center mass. When I was angry, I would run and it would make me so tired I didn’t have the energy to be mad anymore. No matter what I felt, running always made me feel at peace (at least afterwards).

It’s been two years and I can honestly say that race training cycles make me so genuinely happy. It’s something that taught me a lot about self love, positive self talk, consistency, hard work, and not comparing myself to other people. I feel a lot more at peace everyday even when I am struggling and for that I always feel blessed and grateful.