The Mile 2 Suckfest

I have not always been a runner. As a matter of fact, before 2010, I had never run a day in my life. Seriously. And I especially had never been a distance runner. Twelve miles? Why in heaven's name would you not take some sort of motorized vehicle to go that distance? I would've been the first one to lend you cab fare.

But then one evening in February 2010, at 37-years-old, I went out for my first run. Why? For the same reason everybody does: so I could lose weight and not look so fat in my Facebook pictures. I had been using an elliptical machine in my house for a couple of weeks and had built up just the slightest bit of endurance, and out the door I went.

But from then on I was like a scene from Forrest Gump. I just kept running. And running. And running. I wasn't fast at first. Heck, I'm not very fast now, but I still keep going.

"Life is short... running makes it seem longer." 
- Baron Hansen

No matter what distance I'm running, whether it's three miles or fifteen, Mile 2 is always the hardest for me. In my classy and graceful way, for which I am well-known, I call it “The Mile 2 Suckfest". During said suckfest, everything in me tells me to stop. That entire mile my brain is telling me what a moron I am for running again. My body is having some sort of temper-tantrum: my chest threatening a heart-attack, my legs promising to disattach themselves from the rest of me if I don't cut it out this very second.

Sometimes I push through, force myself to go faster, knowing mile 3 (and hopefully beyond) will be better and wanting to get there quicker. Sometimes I just walk until the dreaded 2 is over. But I try never to quit on Mile 2 just because Mile 2 is hard.

A lesson running has taught me: Mile 2’s are everywhere, and we have to push through. Run if you can, walk if you must, but don't quit. Trust that the next mile will be easier, or at least not a suckfest.