Getting Back on the Carousel Horse

Today I went for a five mile run. It's the first time I've run in more than two months. Some of you know that I've been recovering from an injury. I cracked my kneecap hiking when I tripped and fell knee first on a rock.  Apparently, I'm still not the most graceful bull in the china shop.

For the past 2 weeks, I've been attempting to find time to start running again. Okay, in total honesty, it was less about time and a whole lot more about reluctance. The run was a long time in coming, and I was not excited in the least to try it. I just wasn't sure I wanted to put myself through pulled and torn muscles, like what happened during marathon training. More than that, I was just plain old scared.

But last night I thought of my daughter. A while ago, she fell off the horse at the carousel. She's been super skittish about it every since, flat out refusing another ride. Until we went to the zoo last month. They have a wild animal carousel, more specifically, one of the "horses" was a buffalo -- my daughter's favorite animal. I had to drag her off of that thing before the zoo closed.

She conquered her fear by going and doing. As adults, I think that we have more baggage to carry around, so it's harder to let go of it and grab that carousel horse  (or buffalo) with both hands. Whether it's getting back into fitness after a baby (read baby weight), or trying to lose weight for the 20th time after having regained it all back. This applies to coming back to anything and trying it again-- you feel like you're back at square one.

Don't start at that square one. Start on a triangle instead by looking at your goal in a completely different way. If you feel like maybe you've failed before... reset. Take a new path, one that starts with wherever you're at today and moves forward. It's not about what's happened before, it's about what's happening now. And as long as you keep going, you're succeeding.

My run today was slow, I think taking the carousel horse would have been faster. I was actually ready to turn around after the first half mile. But I kept going. I put those running shoes back on and became the horse. Time, pace, run or walk -- it doesn't really matter. It's all about the satisfaction of having completed what I set out to do.