{"id":79,"date":"2013-02-12T05:52:27","date_gmt":"2013-02-12T05:52:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/?p=79"},"modified":"2013-02-18T06:06:08","modified_gmt":"2013-02-18T06:06:08","slug":"my-secret-girl-crush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/?p=79","title":{"rendered":"My Secret Girl Crush"},"content":{"rendered":"

This morning I got up way earlier than I wanted to in order to meet a friend for a run.\u00a0 At 6am when my phone started beeping, buzzing and flashing the words \u201cGet up and run your ass off!\u201d I wanted to throw it out the window.\u00a0 By the way, yes, that\u2019s really what I named my alarm. Amy Marxkors is someone I can randomly run into 3 times in a week, but when we try to plan something, forget it.\u00a0 It inevitably takes a month for us to actually work out our schedules.\u00a0 Since we finally managed to arrange something, and since she\u2019s pretty stinking cool, I managed to peel myself from the comfort of my nice warm bed.<\/p>\n

This girl is amazing.\u00a0 She can run a marathon in just over 3 hours. That\u2019s more than a full minute per mile faster than I can.\u00a0 I\u2019m hoping some of her speed rubs off on me.\u00a0 Here\u2019s my confession-If I wasn\u2019t myself, and I could pick one person in the world that I would choose to be, it would be Marxkors.\u00a0 Lindsey quirk #2- I frequently refer to my girlfriends by their last names.\u00a0 It started back when I was a rower at Michigan State.\u00a0 Regardless of the fact that most of my teammates are married now, they will always be known to me as Worden, Bingham, Swartz, Cotter, Korth, Jewett and Shafer.\u00a0 But I digress. \u00a0Marxkors is a complete goofball, a little bit of a diva and a total badass, all at the same time. \u00a0She is a hockey player, turned elite runner, and a world famous author to boot.\u00a0 And she will likely be mortified that I\u2019ve said all of this about her.\u00a0 Hypothetically speaking, if I was to have a secret girl crush\u2026yeah, you guessed it\u2026Marxkors.\u00a0 Hypothetically, of course.<\/p>\n

Our running topics of conversation today ran the gamut (pun totally intended) of my weird twitching eye\/muscle spasm thing that\u2019s been ongoing for several days, to her pus oozing\u00a0knee injury inflicted by black ice on New Year\u2019s Day, to why you can\u2019t base your idea of someone\u2019s attractiveness \u00a0off of Facebook pictures because let\u2019s be real-photos do sometimes lie. Ultimately, though, the most meaningful topic of the day was healing.\u00a0 Marxkors had a really cool analogy about recovering from a hurting heart that, not surprisingly, related to running.\u00a0 We\u2019re runners.\u00a0 Somehow we find a way to bring everything back to running.\u00a0 But this was seriously really cool, and I have continued to mull it over in my mind all day.\u00a0 We were talking about relationships, and healing, and where I\u2019m at with all of that after a failed marriage.\u00a0 And she said something to the effect of a broken relationship being a wound that takes a toll on your body, your heart.\u00a0 In the same way, a marathon takes a major toll. A marathon requires recovery time as well. Here\u2019s this thing that you have poured your heart and soul and all of your energy into. You put in a lot of time to train for it. Whether it went well or not, you made an attempt.\u00a0 When it\u2019s over, you can\u2019t just jump in and start training for another one the very next day. You have to give yourself some time.\u00a0 And just because you\u2019re in the recovery period, doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re not doing anything.\u00a0 Recovery is part of the process to get ready for the next event. You rest. You let your muscles repair themselves. You heal.\u00a0 You slowly get back to running, you just don\u2019t run at the same level of intensity right out of the gate.\u00a0 \u00a0Eventually you start training again, but you start with 4 miles, not 20. It\u2019s a long slow process, but eventually, you\u2019re ready to try it again.<\/p>\n

I have cried at the finish line of every marathon I\u2019ve run.\u00a0 Sometimes that just means getting a little choked up, other times it\u2019s an all out bawl fest, complete with the ugly cry. I might cry because it went better than expected, or because I\u2019m just glad that it\u2019s over with, or there might be some specific, symbolic gesture involved with a particular race. \u00a0But after completing something of that magnitude that I have thrown my whole self into, I am physically and emotionally spent, and I need to release it.\u00a0 And then, I need to heal and learn what I can from it.<\/p>\n

About a year ago, Marxkors helped me with an essay that I wrote for a submission to a contest, so I feel it\u2019s only appropriate to include the last line from that piece. \u00a0It reads\u2026 Just like everything else in life, it\u2019s really not about the destination; it\u2019s about how you push through all the obstacles you face and what you learn along the way.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true.\u00a0 How we\u00a0face the obstacles we face is what makes us who we are. Whether the obstacle is running a marathon on a sprained ankle, attacking a fear of being vulnerable with the mentality of \u201cwearing your heart on your sleeve\u201d, conquering a fear of swimming to compete in a Half-Ironman, or starting to live life differently at 37 years old; the question is\u2026what am I going to do with it?\u00a0 Am I going to let my fears and my failures define me, destroy me or strengthen me?\u00a0 It\u2019s a choice that only I can make for myself.\u00a0 My experiences make me who I am, I can\u2019t deny that. \u00a0However, Friedrich Nietzsche knew what he was talking about when he said, \u201cThat which does not kill us makes us stronger.\u201d So, I choose strength.\u00a0 But I\u2019m so grateful for all the people who have been there, standing on the sidelines, cheering me on.<\/p>\n

\"Marxkors,<\/a>

Marxkors, RRG, Nicole and Seth at the Gumbo Flats 5K. All 4 of us took home an age group award…What Up?!<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This morning I got up way earlier than I wanted to in order to meet a friend for a run.\u00a0 At 6am when my phone started beeping, buzzing and flashing the words \u201cGet up and run your ass off!\u201d I wanted to throw it out the window.\u00a0 By the way, yes, that\u2019s really what I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-79","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","hentry","category-lessonsfromrunning","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4eO4v-1h","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=79"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79\/revisions\/83"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=79"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=79"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.ramblingrunnergirl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=79"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}