Inspiration in Friendship

I headed to the Halifax Running Room on Sunday morning, to meet up with my clinic for our run.

The store was full of the usual buzz of voices and energy and excitement of a Sunday morning and I saw, from across the room, a woman I had coached last spring and summer in a Learn to Run clinic and then a 10k clinic.

This is no ordinary woman, and I knew that last summer. She is motivated and determined and friendly and sweet. She completely inspired me last summer and though we lost touch (aside from one brief moment at the Hypothermic Half), we picked up on Sunday morning like no time had passed.

We ran different distances, but arrived back at the store at the same time. I sat and stretched with her and her running buddy (she has since run two half marathons and is talking about her third!) (you go on with your bad self, Diane!) and we got to talking.

About everything. About kids and husbands and life and being older than 22. About running and stress and it just… it was so good. We talked about how it all gets better as you get older. About how women become more supportive of each other, more confident in ourselves. About how we finally realize that the time to make time for ourselves is now and how we start to declare our independence through running.

That’s what it’s all about, you know? This whole journey. It’s about finding yourself and the things that you love. It’s about realizing that you are wonderful and special and bursting with potential. It’s about accepting yourself and finding people who accept you, too. It’s about taking time, making time away from your kids or your spouse or your parents or whoever. Time that’s yours. It’s about owning it. Taking your dreams and grabbing them and holding on and not letting go.

It’s not always about the running, not for everyone. But it’s about finding something that makes you feel ferocious and strong and brave and wonderful. It’s about finding something that makes you realize, in the middle of all this mixed up and confusing world, how utterly wonderful you truly are.

Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives. ~Louise L. Hay