A Real Good E-mail.

There are some things that stress me out...social media in general is one of them.  E-mail is another.  E-mail didn't stress me out...until I got a job as an event planner and now instead of leaving my work at work it HAUNTS me when I check my e-mail.  So when I go to check my e-mail I always scan past the work/school/stress related e-mails to the fun ones.

And who sends the very best e-mails? My parents! Yes I am not ashamed to admit this, while they would fail miserably at a hilarious facebook wall post they excel at making e-mail fun again.  (Since nobody really e-mails each other for fun anymore anyways...that's what a facebook message is for)

My mom forwards the funny pictures of animals, the latest and greatest nutritional fads, and occasionally we write novels to each other when we're just having one of those weeks where ranting needs to happen DAILY. (Or...well maybe 5 times daily...)

My dad on the other hand is not quite the constant e-mailer that my mom is.  So I always know its going to be a gem when I see an e-mail from him.  It is usually something about fitness.  But only the really cool fitness stuff (Articles about Bode Miller and Scott Jurek are frequent topics. If only I could be that bad ass).  The latest was no exception, he sent me this article Born to be A Trail Runner, from one of my favorite authors Christopher McDougall who wrote the book Born to Run.

This article could not have come at a better time.  I needed a lil' kick in the butt to get running again, and remember why I love running.

The article Born to be A Trail Runner, talks about these crazy trail runners who just go out and run.  No timers, no excuses, no bragging about qualifying for Boston, no perfect training schedules and eating habits, just running.  I realized that's the kind of fitness/healthy lifestyle freak that I am.  (Just a little less intense on the mileage than them...and when I say a little I mean A LOT).  I run for fun- not to qualify for the Boston marathon for bragging rights.

After reading the article I was motivated.  Not to run a marathon, not to PR in a half marathon, not to sign up for a 5k.  Nope.  I was inspired just to run. As much as possible. No matter the distance.  No matter the weather, no matter the speed just run.  Why? Because I love it.  It was time to stop stressing about why slow runs were slow and why bad runs were bad and stop making up lame excuses of why I couldn't go for a run.  I needed to remember how just plain old running = happy Claire.

And BOY did I pick a great week to start this.  Minnesota weather decided to test my will power to rediscover running like no other!  Tuesday I woke up to rain, and ended up having a lovely 5 mile run in the rain.  Wednesday I woke up to a blizzard and ended up having one of the slowest hardest runs of my life (no matter that it was only 3 miles).   Turned out the weather was always worse in my head and I didn't really care about the mileage, because after every run this week I was happy.  It feels real good to love running again :)

So maybe someday I'll be out there with the most bad ass of them running trail ultra marathons that nobody knows about or needs to qualify for (I can only hope!) or maybe I'll never graduate from 13.1 miles.  Either way I'm still a runner for life, and am happy to say I am officially over feeling pressured to be a perfect health conscious super runner. 

Thanks Dad for a real good e-mail.  I bet you didn't know it would spawn an entire fitness revelation!