You Don't Have to be Athletic to Run a Marathon

This may come as a shock, but though I am not a natural athlete, I will attempt to run 26.2 miles 8 days from now. How is this possible? It's simple-you don't have to be athletic to run. I truly beleive that anyone can run this distance (given, of course, they have a high pain tolerance and too much determination.)

Let me share with you a few anecdotes to show you my point.

My best friend is a natural athlete. Soccer, baseball, volleyball, you name the sport-she's good at it. I attribute this ability to her dad having a PhD in Physical Education (have I mentioned my dad works for a labour association?). One summer, her parents convinced mine to sign me up for the same week-long sports camp my friend was going to. This was not such a good idea. While she excelled and honed in on her natural volleyball and basketball skills, I looked forward to the free Dunkaroo snacks and the end of the day. Finally, it was the end of the week. Yes! I was going to be free from this group of athletic individuals. At the close of the day, the leaders hosted an awards ceremony where the campers were awarded most valuable player, most improved, etc. I believe my friend received "world's most amazing athlete" or something prestigious like that. I was awarded "most likely to get hit in the head with a basketball." No, that's not a joke. My parents probably still have my award in a box in the basement.

Fast forward four years. Every January, our highschool would have a "ski day" outting. We'd all show up early in the morning, board a bus, and go a few hours north to where there was some relatively decent skiing (okay, they were bunny hills). It was grade 11 and my best friend (same superathlete as above) and I decided that we wanted to try snowboarding instead of skiing. Well, not only did we spend the whole day sitting in the snow but at the end of the day, as my best friend was taking her final run down "Gentle Ben," (the name of the hill), she fell and broke her wrist. The ski paramedics bandaged her up and it was my job to keep her lucid on the way back home. A few days later, a concerned individual asked my friend about her casted arm. At the end of the conversation, this person said to my friend: "Funny, because I would have thought it would be Annalise who would break her wrist, not you, since you're more athletic." It's okay, the concerned individual and I were never really tight to begin with.

I'll conclude with this. My freshman year of college, I took a mandatory gym class and, surprisingly, loved it! Oh yes, "Personal Fitness" was one of my favourite classes that semester. All we had to do was work out a few times a week and track our progress. This is when I fell in love with running. Some of my friends were even shocked at how much I liked to run, given my athletic history. Apparently my story was inspiring as a few years later a friend shared of how she had gotten back into running because of me. "I hope you're not offended," she said over the phone, "but when I started running again, I thought to myself, 'if Annalise can do it, I can do it!' " Apparently I was now a measuring stick.

These stories are not supposed to be just entertaining. They illustrate the point that you do NOT need to be athletic to run. Anyone, regardless of their athletic ability or interest in sports can be and should be physically active. You don't have to run a marathon if that's not your thing. You don't even have to run. You can walk, bike, swim. But, you CAN do something. You can even run a marathon. If "most likely to get hit in the head with a basketball" can run a marathon, so can you!