Bish You Running, You REALLY running!!!!!

Ohhhh snap, so exactly one week ago I ran a half marathon.  

Yep, you read that right, I completed a goal I set for myself and ran 13.1 miles with my knees strapped up tight in braces, my heart racing from drinking a pre-workout, and the motivation of unyielding anxiety and stubbornness that made me too legit to quit.

Let's back track: a little over 3 months ago I woke up and decided that I wanted to conquer one of my fears and run a half marathon.  What started out as Facebook status updates turned into a weekly blog with updates on my training, weight, physical and mental health, as well as genuine reactions to a new training regimen.

For a refresher on why I woke up and decided to just wake up and run a half marathon, here's the snippet from my very first post: 

  

Long story short, I wanted to do something that would help with my anxiety.  As a result of running for 30 minutes or longer most days, I did just that, kind of.  Well, I learned how to be patient. 

If you've never met me, then you don't know that patience is NOT a strength I possess.  I'm basically a 5 year old that throws a temper tantrum the moment things don't happen the way or within the time frame that I want them to happen.  This is also impacted by my anxiety, which happens to be the driving force behind a lot of my actions and reactions.  Seems like an excuse but I legit have no control over it.  Some days I realize that I'm going to overreact and can get somewhat of a handle on it, other days my anxiety seems completely logical and people AND the universe just need to get their shit together; IT. STRESSES.ME.OUT.  

BUT, with having to run anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours, I had no choice but to learn how to be patient.  Of course I wanted to be done with a run as fast as I could, but my body could only run so fast for so long; so I had to learn how to pace myself.  What's the fastest and most comfortable I can run without tiring myself out?  What problems can I solve while on this run?  What negativity can I get rid of while on this run?

  
It also forced me to do some breathing exercises to help with my anxiety.  Yes, in the middle of a run I would get anxious about actually running, running or NOT running a certain time, no being able to finish a run, and basically an and all possibility of me failing (whatever failure looked like that day).

  Any time I would start panicking, I would do a 2 minute breathing exercise on my fitbit.  IT. HELPS.  Because I'm an introvert and unwanted attention freaks me out, I do everything subtly so that I'm not drawing attention to myself.  I'll do breathing exercises in the middle of a meeting, when I'm in a crowded place, when someone blinks in my direction, any time my anxiety kicks up.   

Don't get me wrong, there were still times that my anxiety got the best of me, most of the time they were stress induced (being broke ain't easy mane) but for the most part, I'm a calmer person.  I could take a step back, acknowledge that I'm having a moment, take the time I needed to decompress, and then figure out action steps to avoid another anxiety attack.  That's a RARE thing for me.  I'm more of  '0-100 real quick" kind of gal; curse people out first and never ask questions later.  

I'm a nice person, I just have some issues that I refuse to address, moving on. 

This entire journey, from struggling to get through 3 miles on an outdoor track, to comfortably zooming through 5 mile runs has been both challenging and rewarding.  My body has changed drastically (40 lbs down biiiisshh), my confidence has gone up, I lost my booty (lets all shed a thug tear), I have patience, found out my knees are pretty messed up (can't avoid surgery too much longer), I  gained a new respect for runners, and I fell in love with my body.  

I HATED my body.  I always felt like there was something that needed improvement; but never for fun, it was always "you NEED to tone that, trim that, lose x amount of weight, to be attractive".  It made loving myself 10x harder.  I still find things to work on, but now I view them as challenges and not necessities.  I lost 40 lbs, I'm saucy as fuck right now.  I don't have a big butt anymore but baby I can still move these little pancakes.  I'm in the best shape of my life and I'm trying to avoid letting societal norms get in the way of the unconditional love that I have for this awesome body of mine.  This same body that allowed me to squat 305 lbs, compete in CrossFit, compete in a power lifting competition and not come in last place even though I was the smallest competitior, and run a muthafuckin half marathon; this body is the shit boo.  

But, now that you know all the mental, physical and emotional stuff, lets talk about me struggling through this race.  So boom, it's race day, I wake up at 4am to walk Sadie, stretch, warm up my breakfast, and pack everything into my car.  I get all of this done, ON. TIME.  That never happens for me!!  I was feeling like one of those super organized soccer moms that yo see in the movies and in commercials. 

I'm in my car by 4:45am and I'm heading down to Belle Isle.  I get to Belle Isle around 5:30am, it's pitch black.  No street lights, no flares, no flashlights on the phone, NOTHING.  I'm driving blind and hoping I'm going in the right direction.  I turn my high beams on because I'm the only person there.  I see the signs with directions to the race check in and I follow them.  I pull into an empty lot and just sit there until someone else shows up because I have no idea where I am.  

FINALLY, someone pulls into the lot and I creepily follow them to the edge of the light where guess what, the frickin check in tables are.  I hop out the hoopty and rush over to the tents to make sure everything is good to go.  They give me my bib number, safety pins, a t-shirt, and let me know what time to come back for the race.  At this point I have to take a shit but imma hold it for as long as I can; I'm nervous, I have to shit when I'm nervous...don't judge me.  I pin my bib number to my shirt, plug my phone into the charger and prep my pre-workout so I can be ready to drink it at 6:30am.  I had an entire schedule in my head and exact times that I needed to do things. 

5:00am - Eat breakfast

5:30am - Arrive at race location

5:35am - Check in

6:00am - Charge Phone

6:30am - Drink Pre-Workout

6:35am - Put knee braces on

6:45am - Try to Poop

6:55am - Walk to Starting Line

7:00am - Avoid shitting your pants

So I drank my pre-workout at 6:30am........it kicked it at 6:32am. Oh. My. Gawd.  I was WIRED.  

I'm talmbout ready to run the race at that very moment.  I couldn't even take a pre-race shit because I was so amped up.  I power walked to the start line and had to do old track warm ups to keep myself from shaking.  I'm pacing around and finally the pacers for the race show up.  I quickly walk over the to the 2:30:00 pacer and convince myself that I can run faster than the time I trained for (2:36:00).  I'm nervous as ever, my anxiety is kicking up pretty bad, I'm terrified that I won't finish, everything is making me sad and scared, oh my goodness why am I here, why am I doing this, this is dumb Kyra, this is way too much, this is *BOOM* and we're off.  

Now, at a 2:30:00 pace we're supposed to run an average of 11:23 per mile.  The first mile we ran was 11:34, mainly because it's super crowded at the start of races and you have to maneuver around a whole lot of people stopping to take pictures (why tf are you stopping to take pictures in the middle of a race???).  So the first mile was super comfortable, I'm thinking to myself "if this is pace , I'm about to shit on this race" #BARS.  But homegirl would speed up almost every mile.  I'm like hold on Kristie, slow down so I can like, not die during this race.  Miles 1-4 were a breeze.  We were running through the jungle of Belle Isle, which I didn't know existed until I ran that race.  It wasn't until Mile 8 that my knees were like "hey boo, we tide".  

BUT, luckily they were just throbbing, no sharp pains yet.  For reference, here's how fast we were going up until this point: 

Mile 1:  11:34

Mile 2:  11:05

Mile 3:  10:56

Mile 4:  11:04

Mile 5:  11:08

Mile 6:  10:56

Mile 7:  11:03

Mile 8:  10:55

........NONE OF THOSE TIMES (AFTER MILE 1) ARE 11:23!!!!!! So we're hauling ass and waaaay ahead of pace.  I didn't realize this until we got to Mile 10.  Mile, FUCKING, 10.  I knew I was slowly dying because I could barely breathe and it didn't help that it was 90% humidity outside.  But I was breathing much heavier than normal. 

Mile 9: 11:17

Mile 10: 11:13

Kristie....we are 8 minutes ahead of schedule.  Now I'm not the smartest cookie

But I can do simple math (took me a mile to actually get the math right)

You. Have. Me. Fucked. Up.  No Kristie, just no.  

I wanted to run comfortably, not halfway die and not even notice that I'm actually dying.  So Kristie, the pacer, says "hey yall, we're a little ahead of pace so we're gonna take a quick break, and then we'll start running again when we get back to the main road".  A little, Kristie.....really????  8 whole ass minutes is a LITTLE to you?!  Some of you may be thinking to yourselves "But this is good right?  You went 10 miles without stopping and you're keeping up, that's so great".  No tf it's not!!! I'm tiredt and I damn sure didn't want to run this fast but we're here now so lets go darnit.  

Miles 11-13 are when I start questioning everything about Miss Kristie.  We stopped like 5-6 more times trying to get back on pace.  At that point I was like aight boo, imma gone head and just finish this cuz I'm tired and you on that bullshit.  

Mile 11: 12:21

Mile 12: 1:36

Mile 13: 11:40

I was struggling to keep myself together at this point.  I wanted to be done as soon as possible but my poor little legs could only go so fast.  I was passing the mile 12 mark when who else but Rachel pulls up beside me and says "YAAAAASSS BITCH, YOU RUNNIIINNNNG".  I'm like yeeesss bish I aammmmm.  It was at that point that I actually needed motivation.  I had gone the entire race without seeing any of my friends, but I was A okay with that because I wasn't ready to quit.  Before she pulled up I was READY to throw in the towel.  I don't care that I have less than a mile to go, I only care about climbing into bed and going back to sleep.  But bae was there, and she gave  me that tiny bit of motivation that I needed to keep going.  So I did, I sped up and started rolling.  

Now, the white girl whispering in my ear this entire time (Nike Running Club App) told me that I had run 13.1 miles about .2 miles before the finish line.  Bih whet??  

You mean to tell me I'm running extra for you mofos!!!!! At this point tho, I'm tired and I want to be done so I just keep on running.  Of course when I try my hardest to sprint....I catch a cramp in my calf muscle.

I cross the finish line and you guessed it, I started crying.  Not ugly slave cry, more like the silent thug cry, literally.  I wasn't overwhelmed with emotion, I was just so got dang tired.  My knees immediately started throbbing, my legs were shaking, and it was extremely hard to catch my breath.  All of that scared the shit out of me (almost literally), and I needed a second to gather myself. 

The coolest part about this entire moment is that I got to see some of my closest friends cheer me on to the finish line, AND they gave me some time alone to gather myself and calm down.  Real friends know when you need a second or two to be alone and marinate for a while.  But once I got myself together and sat down, it was on and popping at that point.  Oh how beautiful it is to hear your bestie baes tell you how proud of you they are.  Oh how wonderful it is for them to see something so cool that you can't see for yourself.    And my friends are just A-1 dangit.  None, and I do mean none, of my friends are morning people.  Yet all 4 of them woke up at the crack of dawn to not see me run any part of my race except the finish; and they were happy as shit to watch me for that whole 30 seconds.

Has it completely set in that I did a thing?  Nope.  Am I proud of myself?  Very.  I still haven't completely wrapped my head around the fact that I actually did it, but I'm happy I finally finished something that I put my mind to.....and that I no longer have to wake up at the crack of dawn to run some obscene amount of miles.  I worked really frickin hard on that race.  I woke up on days when I was having a mental breakdown at 5am, and still got up to go run.  I watched my body shrink in places I didn't think were possible, and I wore my body out trying to achieve this goal.....And I'd do it all over again.

Before I end this post I need to give thanks to my entire support team.   The Twerkettes (Galloway, Rachel, and Gwen) have always been in my corner.  I always pop up with random things to try, to which they usually just look at me and say "you got it"...which is code for: YOU can do that, I'm not even gone fake like I want to lol.  Even the night before the race, I told them how nervous I was and they reassured me that I would do just fine, probably even better than I planned to (which I did).  My PerZ Galloway txtd me after the race to congratulate me and gas me up.  That never happens so it always means way more to me than people will ever know.  My ride or die client Cecily for always breathing positivity into me even when I think I'm not doing enough or don't deserve recognition for things.  My parents and twin brother, who really believe I can do anything I put my mind to.  Elena, words can never express how thankful I am to have someone so positive, kind, and loving in my corner.  She's always mean to me but she sees in me what I never see in myself.  A'keem, Krystal, and Rachel for being my cheer team.  It comes in different forms from each of them, but all 3 of them were always rooting for me and letting me know that I could always do it, I just had to believe it.  The homie X was basically a motivational speaker for me.  He'd drop some words of wisdom and I'd be in awe.  Like you really believe in me homie?  Well then I believe in me too dangit! My supervisor who happens to be the G.O.A.T when it comes to supporting my foolishness.  Lastly, everyone that sent me kind words of encouragement any time I would rant about how tired of running I was.  Which was basically every day but so what.  All of it meant the world to me :)

Next up, I want to run a full marathon next year, lets see how that training goes come March of next year. 

For those of you that think you can't do it, you definitely can.  

The race was no where near as hard as I thought it would be and it was definitely worth it.  If you ever need words of encouragement to get you started and keep you going, here are some of my favorite.

You can do it, put yo back into it - Ice Cube

Don't stop, get it, get it - Uncle Luke

James 1:2-4 

2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 

3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 

4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.