Challenge Accepted

My shoes post-Dash...MUCH cleaner than last year!

 

I've decided I need to live every month with a theme. I love the heck out of a good theme. Like maybe July can be 80's month and August can be mashed potato month (not sure how to work with that theme but c'mon it'd be totally delicious). Or, just maybe, I can focus on one challenge per month because my theme months may really rack up quite a cost in costumes and decorations.  

 

June was all about challenging myself. I am not really someone who challenges herself physically. I love a good challenge at work and lawd knows I love to play Boggle against people who know really big words but I don't often make my bod do...well...much of anything. I didn't intend for it to be a month of facing obstacles (literally and figuratively) but it just happened that the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer and the Warrior Dash were both in June. Each deserve a post dedicated just to them because each was such a transformative experience (June was full of those too) so I'll hopefully remember to go into each event in more detail in a later post.

 

At the end of May I started thinking about the challenges I had ahead of me in the coming weeks and to be honest? I was scared shitless. I kept telling myself that I couldn't walk almost 40 miles in 2 days and that I couldn't face a 5k littered with tough obstacles all by myself. I had this looming voice in my head, "not fast enough, not thin enough, not fit enough, not tough enough." I started to believe that I wouldn't complete the challenges ahead. But guess what...I did.

 

Suck it, looming voice that fills my head with thoughts of doubt!

 

Once we got to walking, the Avon Walk was so much fun. It was miles of laughing with one of my best and oldest friends and yelling at the top of our lungs because we're super obnoxious together and that's just what we do. It was about meeting people and connecting for a bigger cause. At the end of the weekend I felt such a sense of accomplishment that I misted up a little bit at the finish line. I realized that no matter my current body shape or weight or what other people say, I kick ass.

 

The Warrior Dash was intimidating because, though I ran it last year with two of my other best friends, I was running it this year alone. I didn't want to do it and up until twelve hours before my wave time I was thinking of chickening out but I have an amazing support system in my life. No, I'm for real. I had a handful of wonderfuls telling me to do it for myself and how proud I would be at the end. Know what? They were right. I hit this moment right before the end where I felt such clarity and I was so proud of myself and damn it I felt so strong! Then I went back to wanting to die for a little bit and then I crossed the finish line and it was all over.

 

I'm so excited to see what other challenges I can throw my own way this summer. I'm running the Shape Magazine Diva Dash and I am ready to kick some serious ass.

 

 

Now go and kick some ass today, you hottie!