I’m not exactly the kind of person who does New Year resolutions I feel like setting them just ensures your failure. However, I have set some serious goals for myself for 2020. 

In my younger years (and I’m talking young as in teenager young) I used to run. I was very athletic and loved the freedom that running gave me. After I had my son at age 21, running definitely fell by the wayside and I started picking up a lot of pounds. 

You may call that baby weight. I know I called that baby weight. My baby is 27 now… and I am still carrying that baby weight. 

I’ve decided to commit to discovering what I loved about running again. In the past 6 months, I have lost over 50 pounds in the quest to run again.

Although some people may consider this the easy way (trust me it wasn’t) I had vertical gastric sleeve surgery in February 2019. Because I have been blessed with the wonderful autoimmune disease, Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis and hypothyroidism, the struggle to drop the pounds is real. But, a goal without a plan is just a wish, and one of the main goals I had set for myself after the surgery was to run a 5k. 

Since my weight loss has not been as dramatic as I thought it would be, I had to pick myself up by my sneaker laces and figure out how I was going to achieve this goal. Setting a goal for running is much easier when you have friends who also run. I’m thankful to have such a wonderful friend in Scoot a Doot’s own Mer because she always encourages me and celebrates my small victories with the same (or sometimes bigger) excitement as she does large victories. She knew I wanted to get back to running. I happened to be talking to her about my goals on the phone today and somehow wound up signing up for the Hot Chocolate 5K in Philly on April 4th. 

Immediately after I messaged her to tell her I signed up, I was really concerned because I haven’t run since October.

Then suddenly it popped in my head… Get out there and run. Now the weather today is not the best. It’s cold. It’s raining. And I have natural hair. If you don’t know, raining does NOT go well with natural hair. (PS – I also hate cold weather!)

However, I got out there in the best running outfit I could put together, drove to my local park, and did the None-to-Run Week 1, Workout 1 interval walk-and-run for 30 minutes. There were times I could run a little more and there were times where I skipped the short-run and opted for the walk. 

Most importantly, I got out there and did it. It was far from pretty or quick, but I said to myself if you can do this on a day that is cold, rainy, and you know you’re going to get soaked, then you can do this no matter what. Guess what I discovered? I can do this, no matter what. 

Wish you could see this soaked Athena in the freezing rain?  Well, your wish has been granted!  See you next Friday!

You can find Sonya (NJGardenTeacher) on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.