by Tonya Williams…

100130_race1The alarm went off at 2:30 a.m.

It didn’t really matter, since I was awake anyway. I had tossed and turned since midnight, thinking about this very day – the day that I would run my very first marathon.

I looked over and saw my running shoes on the floor beside me. “Yep, me and you baby,” I said to my Asics, “we’re going to do it today.”

Still, I felt sick to my stomach.

The “What If’s” started to take over.

What if you don’t finish?

What if your knee goes out?

What if you are absolutely miserable for the entire race?

Blah, blah, blah….

“Okay,” I thought to myself, “what if I don’t finish or my knee goes out or that I am absolutely miserable?” I have not finished things before, I’ve endured knee pain, and I have definitely spent time in misery. And, I lived to tell all about it.

I jumped up and ran over to put my hand on the balcony door. “Crap, it’s freezing outside,” I told my husband who was munching down on an orange. The little voices started up again.

Girl, you know that you cannot handle the cold.

You don’t have to do this.

You are way out of your league.

You have not trained enough to finish a marathon.

Blah, blah, blah…

While the voices were chattering, I was busy putting on my layers of clothing, drinking my coffee, snacking on energy bars and stretching.

I remembered the day I decided to do the Disney World Marathon. I’m one of those people who has a flashlight moment that is usually preceded with, “Oh, wouldn’t it be fun if…” and then I go off to figure out how to do the “if” part.

These moments have led us to some really fun places like French school in Sancerre, weekend excursions to Tuscany and wine caves in Napa Valley.

But, never, ever has my “if” part included waking up in the wee morning hours in freezing temperatures to run 26.2 miles. I’m just not that kind of girl.

I had told myself that I wanted to do a marathon a few years ago, but I let excuses get in the way and convinced myself that marathon running was way out of my league.

I love to exercise, but who in their right mind goes out to run 26.2 miles in one day? Certainly not me.

Well, I wasn’t that kind of girl until I had one of my “wouldn’t it be fun” moments one day this summer while driving to Jupiter, Florida for vacation.

I was bored, and what do bored people do with an iphone while on I-95? Well, we surf the web. I don’t remember exactly how or why I started googling marathons. I think it was because my sister-in-law had just finished her first, which had my subconscious going to work, and then my next thought was “wouldn’t it be cool to run through Paris,” and then somehow that thought loop landed me on a page about the Disney World Marathon.

(It’s interesting how the mind loops, goes down one-way streets, does U-turns and comes to some a destination that you never expected.)

“Honey, let’s do a marathon,” I said to my husband. After chuckling, he agreed. Within 24 hours, we were registered.

We started our training immediately, in the very state that we would run in in five months, except the temperatures were blazing hot compared to the unexpected frigid temperature on January 10th.

I wish I could say that I followed a strict training schedule and devoted the next five months to being a “marathon runner,” but the fact is that I trained very little.

While my husband was out doing long runs, I was either hanging out at the coffee shop, traveling, or in my office writing, planning and working with clients.

I didn’t abandon training all together. I exercise every day, but I definitely wasn’t taking the running part too seriously. I would go out and do 7 to 10 mile runs once or twice a week. I did manage to go out for one long run of what I thought was 15 miles, but my husband later informed me that it was only twelve.

So, here I was on the morning of my marathon wondering if I could pull this one off or if I was in WAY over my head.

We boarded the shuttle at 4 a.m. with the other insane people who found this type of thing to be fun. Being around the crazy pre-marathon energy helped me to get out of my own head.

Suddenly, I stopped focusing on what I thought I couldn’t do and started taking in the enjoyment of just being alive.

Then, as my coach has encouraged me to do in other areas of my life, I made a decision.

I decided that I was going to finish this marathon.

That was it. The decision had been made. Now, I needed to focus on how I was going to do it.

I started thinking about all the things that I had done to prepare me for this race. I fuel my body with healthy foods. I practice yoga. I take spinning classes. I have hiked the highest peak in the lower 48 states. I am in great shape.

Okay, this was feeling better.

Then, I started thinking about the people who have inspired me: my mother who would probably run with me if she had not had polio at the age of three that affected her legs, and my cousin, Lynn, who so courageously beat breast cancer while also raising her daughter and continuing to support herself. I thought about my mother-in-law who had blazed the streets of New York in her eighties, requiring me to run just to keep up. I thought about my dad who would be beside me if he didn’t suffer from lung disease. I thought about my sister-in-law, Dorothy, who started running marathons a couple of years ago. I thought about all of my wonderful clients who are stepping up in their own lives.

Heck yeah, I can do this!

We gathered in a corral like a bunch of livestock, waiting for the start. As crazy as it sounds, I loved being here with over 16,000 people who would have run 26.2 miles before some people were even out of bed. The guy in front of me had a sign on his back that said, “Three months ago, this seemed like a good idea.” Yep, but yet, we were all here, and there was something magical about this experience.

At 6:00 a.m., in the darkness of an Orlando morning, the fireworks went off, Boom-Boom-Pow started to play over the speakers, and I was officially running my first marathon.

I didn’t think about how far I had to run or how many hours were left. I thought about how great it felt to be here. It felt SO good to be alive. I enjoyed the spirits of the people who surrounded me. I listened to the sounds of marching bands and the crowd as they cheered us on. I talked with my husband. I was just being, or should I say, just running.

Mile by mile, I just ran. One foot in front of the other.

I ran through the Magic Kingdom, Animal Kingdom, along highways, across overpasses. I kept thinking about what my mom had said the night before, “Run, Forest, Run.”

I was running.

Then, it dawned on me, I had never run more than thirty minutes without walking. In my training, I had run either 7 or 8 minutes and walked a minute. Not today, I was just running.

I did stop for a bathroom break, a picture in front of the castle, at water stations and to shed layers of clothing, but for the most part, I ran the entire race.

At mile 18, my legs were feeling heavy, so I ate another pack of GU and decided it was time to listen to my iPod.

I’m not sure what happened, but I started to pick up my pace. My husband warned me that I still had a long way to go (in other words, slow down), but that was his story.

I realized that I could potentially break five hours.

I ran faster.

At mile 20, I heard a man say, “Only 6 more miles to go.” I looked at my watch and then I looked at my Asics and said, “You and me baby, we’re going to do this thing.”

This was the time of the race that I had been warned about. This is when many people crash and burn. I knew I could choose to believe that OR I could choose to believe in me.

I chose me.

At mile 23, I didn’t think that I had to keep this pace up for thirty more minutes. I just thought, “You are one tough cookie.”

I kept running.

At mile 24, my back was hurting, but instead of focusing on the discomfort, I said to myself, “You can do anything for 20 more minutes.”

I kept running.

At mile 26, I was physically hurting, but this angel appeared with a sign that read, “Pain is temporary; pride is forever.”

The last.2 miles of the race were the hardest. Yes, there was an end in sight, but because I had picked up my pace significantly at the end, my legs were almost out of mojo.

Run, Forest, Run.

As I approached the finish line, I had tears in my eyes, not because I had just finished a marathon, but because I had lied to myself for so long, telling myself that I was not that kind of girl.

I AM that kind of girl.

I also realized that the finish is just the beginning.

Final Notes:

Ten years ago, I was overweight and couldn’t run to the mailbox.

On Sunday, I completed a marathon.

Are you lying to yourself? Are you settling in your life?

Stop it.

Life is best lived on the edge of where you think you cannot or should not be.

So, who wants to join me in Chicago in October?

Tonya Leigh Williams is a coach, speaker, and writer. She is also the founder of Just B Living, a company dedicated to empowering women to create amazing lives and bodies without dieting, deprivation and drama.

Her passion is helping women find freedom from body image, weight, and food issues. She teaches the secrets of naturally slender people, coaches women on normal eating without deprivation, and shows women how to simultaneously transform their bodies while also living at peace within them. She has helped women lose weight, gain clarity and purpose, and step into a new life free of struggle.

If you are interested in learning more about coaching with Tonya, please email tonya@justbliving.com.

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