Finding the girl I used to be

I ran a 5K on Sunday. My first in more than a year. Last year, I ran eight. It's September and I've got one under my belt. Rather than focus on the negative, I'm choosing to think about it in a better way.

I ran a 5K. I didn't run the whole thing, but I ran a whole lot more than I thought I would. And I finished faster than I thought I could.

For the last three months of 2013 and the first five months of 2014, I dated a really nice guy. A good man. However, he was not the right man for me, for a lot of reasons. He was lazy -- emotionally and physically. He didn't like to work out and he didn't like to eat healthy. And rather than do my own thing, I let him lead me down the path of carbs and lazy Sunday mornings and skipping the gym. At the time, it was fun. Towards the end of the relationship -- even before either of us saw that the end was near -- I was getting antsy. I wanted more, I needed more, from my partner.

I needed someone to push me, to understand what finishing a 5K felt like. To understand the difference between 1,200 calories period, and 1,200 calories in a healthy mix of carbs, proteins and fats, and calories in vs. calories out. And if he didn't understand, to listen to me when I tried to explain to him that all calories are not created equally when he attempted to shed some of his winter weight, but he was focused on eating 1,200 calories, regardless of what they were made of.

Yes, I'm still in the stage where I'm only remembering the frustrating stuff. And I say frustrating, rather than bad, because there wasn't really anything bad. There was frustration. There was boredom. There was vanilla. There was purgatory. And in the end, when it was over, there was relief because I could never really pinpoint anything substantive reason to go with: we should break up.

And so when he ended things for his own misguided reasons --  he had a lot going on in his head -- I was appreciative that he pulled the trigger. And as the weeks went on and I was on my own, I began to find myself again. And even though I've struggled to find the 180s, I have embraced working out, in the way I used to, in a way I hadn't known for much of the time I had been with Lee.

I have a dog who makes me walk 10,000 steps every day, and I have a treadmill in my basement that prepared me for my first 5K of the year.

And slowing, I am finding the girl I used to be.


#100sweatydays Days 15 and 16