An athlete?!

The other day I was talking with a friend about fitness, weight loss, athletes etc.  She mentioned something about me being an athlete, and I laughed it off.

I have never been an athlete.  I have never even come close to describing myself with the term athlete.  In school I didn't play any sports, unless you consider marching in the band as a sport!  :)  I have never been able to run further than maybe three houses down the street after the dog.  Even in the military, I lucked out and joined during the time period when they hooked you up to a machine, had you ride a bike for a few minutes and considered you "fit" for the annual fitness test.  Running in formation was something you suffered through in basic training but you never actually ran "PT" like they require in today's Air Force!  In fact I can only recall one time in my life where I even worked out on a regular basis for longer than a month or two.  I believe it was in 1999, we lived within walking distance to a gym and started going every morning with a neighbor of ours.  We did that for just about a year before we all dropped off the band wagon and never went again!

Then something changed.  In December 2010, right after I returned home from my grandma's funeral, I started working out.  I used the elliptical in our basement a couple times a week and it just about killed me because I had not worked out regularily for at least 10 years, and had not worked out at all in probably 5 years.  We bought the elliptical machine a month before I found out I was pregnant with Morgan.  I figured since I couldn't get pregnant, I might as well get my ass in shape.  We see how that worked out!  I have a nearly 5 year old daughter now!  :)

Anyway, after a couple weeks of working out, a friend challenged me to run in a 10K five months later.  I'm not really sure why I agreed, since I was not a runner.  I guess I knew deep down that I needed to do something to get in shape and figured why not.  So I bought an old treadmill from a friend for $100 and started running.  Well it was more of a run/walk but I was doing it three nights a week.  Within 6 weeks I had increased the length of running and shortened the length of walking a little bit.  I had not lost a single pound but I was wearing pants that were one size smaller.  We decided to join a fancy gym by our house at that point, and four months later I was 25lbs smaller and 3 sizes smaller than the day I joined the gym! 

I go to the gym every week day morning at 5am.  I am there on the weekend days more times than not.  In the summer I spend entirely too much time there sitting by the pool on the weekends, but thats a whole 'nother story!  Anyway, I take all sorts of classes, I am constantly pushing and challenging myself.  I have run in three 5K races now, I have completed The Manitou Incline twice and am 31lbs lighter than the day I joined the gym.  I am 61lbs lighter than the day I had my daughter!

And you know what...now that I think about it.  Maybe I am an athlete.  I'm not sure what exactly is required to be considered an athlete, but I am a hell of a lot closer to it now than I have ever been before!  I don't run super fast, I am not as good as most of the people in the Athletic Conditioning class on Wednesday mornings, and you won't see me compete in a tri-athlon anytime soon....but by golly I am pretty darn proud of myself! 

There is something really awesome about running in a 5K and seeing that finish line ahead.  The icing on the cake is giving your daughter a high five just before you run across that finish line!