It was during this time of pain, recovery, and frustration that I realized how often I took for granted the fact that I was able to walk, and run, and do just about anything I wanted without having to worry about physical limitation, yet, even though I was able to do these things I was often too lazy to. I decided then that once my knee had recovered more I would begin running and being more active. I set in my mind the idea of doing a marathon at some point in the near future, and in a sense this would be my big 'victory', so to speak, from my knee surgery, as well as a reminder not to take advantage of my health and ability.
When I first moved to the Chicago suburbs in the summer of 2007 I decided to start running since I lived in a a fairly nice neighborhood and had a park nearby to run through. I was super discouraged when, once I started running, I could make it only a block or two before my knee started aching and my lungs started struggling. I kept up with it though, and began to run with some sort of consistency... until winter came. Once winter came instead of running I would just sit around, drink beer, and watch season after season of Scrubs. Then the following summer I bought a bike and began to ride that as my means of maintaining my health and active lifestyle. I didn't run at all from the summer of 2008 until January of this year.
Early in the year this year my desire to run a marathon kicked up again, but I decided that I wanted to start with the half marathon before even attempting to run the whole. Additionally, with the half marathon being the day before my birthday I figured if anything the medal I would receive at the end of the run would be a birthday present to myself for having just ran 13.1 miles. I found out, however, that the day of the half marathon was the same day as a bike event that I signed up to participate in, so I couldn't do it. Because of this, my mind naturally made the next logical decision that needed to be made...sign up for the full marathon....?
With excitement and terror I want to tell you what I did with that thought: yesterday morning I signed up for the 2010 Chicago Marathon with World Vision. World Vision is a non-profit organization that seeks to help children, families, and communities worldwide by tackling problems of poverty and injustice in over 100 different countries. I am super excited for the opportunity to be able to raise money and run for Team World Vision, but at the same time I am incredibly terrified of the commitment that I made by signing up. As I was filling out the form to sign I up my hand was literally shaking because of the tension between the two emotions.
So, we'll see what happens through this all. I figure, if anything, at least I'll get the sweet world vision jersey to wear and show off to my friends and such.
Here is just a quick video that was made my World Vision to give a little info about their cause and the team. Enjoy!
Intro to Team World Vision from Team World Vision on Vimeo.
