Somewhere behind the athlete you’ve become, the hours of practice, and the coaches who have pushed you is a little girl who fell in love with the game and never looked back…Play for her. ~ Mia Hamm
When I was a kid, I loved to run. It was one of my favorite things, moving fast, giving it my all without thinking about anything but getting…there. It didn’t matter if I made it there first (sometimes I did), where we ran (sometimes in circles), just the simple act of running, barely feeling my legs moving under me was exhilarating. I ran everywhere. Go get the mail? Run. Go get the milk from the fridge? Run. Go to bed? Run.
I lost that somewhere between wanting to be a cool kid and trying to fit in. Fortunately, running came back to me as an adult, but not with the same reckless abandon I had when I was younger. We all get more tense as we get older, and I often find that I hold myself back from letting it all go, worrying about pace, heart rate, injuries, what to cook for supper. I think we would all be better off if we worried a little less and relaxed just a little more.
I have an 6 mile run planned for today, and I am going to run it like I did when I was 12.?
***Featured Image Courtesy of Tanya Little via Flickr***