How I Became a LaLa…

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How I Became a LaLa…

During an 11-mile run

Yeah, so I’m one of those people. Those crazy people who run. I clearly remember being on the other side of the line. I would see others running and wonder why in the hell someone would do that if they weren’t being chased by a zombie or ax-wielding mad man.

It started gradually with me (OMG, that sounds like the beginning of a Lifetime TV movie involving a teenager :-D ): Some women in my neighborhood decided to give running a try and asked if I was interested. I’d just gotten my youngest son in pre-school and was starting to come out of the fog of having three children in four years. And I had a LOT of baby weight I needed to shed. So I jumped at the opportunity to exercise and get to know my neighbors. We would run at night, and in the beginning, running an entire mile without stopping was an accomplishment. Pretty soon we were up to 2 then 3 miles straight and it wasn’t long before we ran our first 5K.

At that point, I was content. I’d never run that far before and I thought I could run three miles several times a week for the rest of my life and be content. During this time, my friends and I noticed this other running crew, comprised of tall, angular blondes and brunettes. They wore their hair in ponytails, they ran in 3×3 formation and their stride seemed syncopated. We nicknamed them the LuLus, because of their Lululemon workout gear. We were all different ethnicities, all different sizes, all different paces, all different workout gear. I joked that we were the antithesis of the LuLus; we were LaLas. The name stuck. :-)

Those were fun times. Life, however, intervened, and I fell off my running. My friends, however, never did. They continued running. And I’d join them occasionally, but not enough to feel that elusive “runner’s high.” My friends ran obstacle courses and then progressed to their first half-marathon. I proudly cheered from the sidelines, but a part of me wanted to know what it would feel like to cross the finish line. To experience the euphoria that my friends felt as they shared their experiences and laughed at the pictures taken during the race.

With very little training I ran a 10-mile race back in March, and I was happy I did it, but I felt like I could’ve done better. So when the LaLas decided to run their first full marathon in November, and I saw there was a half-marathon option, I signed up for it. There was the added incentive of being able to finish a half marathon as a gift to myself for my fortieth birthday (two weeks after the race).

I didn’t run as much as I wanted to over the summer, but I had a ten week training plan, so ten weeks out from the race, I started training. I made a promise to myself that I was going to put training–essentially, me–first. I wasn’t going to fit it in, or only do it if it was convenient for my family. Everything in my life, even my writing, would revolve around the training. And I kept that promise to myself. It was rough starting out, but about three weeks in, it hit me. I’d run enough miles to experience that “runner’s high.” And oh man, it’s incredible. You feel invincible, like you can’t believe you’re actually running that far. And this commitment imprints itself on your soul. If you’re supposed to run 7 miles, you want to run 7 miles. It’s not enough to run 6 1/2, you have to do the full 7. It sounds crazy, I know, but it happens.

And just like that, I stepped over the line. The line that separates the runners from the non-runners. I don’t mean that to sound judgmental in any way. But runners are crazy. We spend a lot of money on running shoes. We run in all types of weather. We talk about GUs and hydration, heel strike vs toe strike, natural vs. pose running. We talk about pace and PR (personal records). We have different gadgets/apps to measure different things.

And runners have to run.

This Saturday, November 15th, I will run my first half-marathon in Richmond, Virginia. Wish me luck. :-)