In the following post, I share more personal information than usual (or ever).  If you’re here for one of my normal discussions about Walt Disney World, Disney Cruise Line, Disney recipes, crafts, movies, or collectibles, come back tomorrow for our regularly scheduled program.  Please excuse the interruption.

As many of you know, I’m about to turn 50 – and I’m not all that broken up about it.  Many people get sad or mad or depressed or, God forbid, go into midlife-crisis mode – not me, though, not my style.  I haven’t yet reached an age that has triggered any unhappy feelings.  I’d be a lot happier if gravity would go pick on somebody else for a change, but I feel good, in general, and I have many blessings to count each day.  I do sometimes feel that life’s going by faster and faster all the time.  Then I get to thinking:  Maybe I should knock some stuff off my to-do list before more time gets away from me.

I am not athletic.  I’m a bit of a girly girl with tough guy tendencies and I didn’t grow up playing sports – there’s absolutely NO eye-hand coordination in the end of the gene pool from whence I sprang.  I never aspired to be athletic – I mostly wanted to have fun, eat good food, and pursue happiness.  Happiness that did not involve sweating or getting dirty or making my body do anything uncomfortable.  I’m not tall, I have a long torso and short limbs.  I’m what I describe as sturdy with some buoyancy that makes swimming my best athletic endeavor.  Get the picture?

For most of my life, I felt blissfully uninspired to become one with my inner athlete (if she even existed!) – even after losing my father to heart disease when I was 19.  I was able to maintain this mindset all the way until almost three years after I had my second (and final) child at age 30.  The baby weight was not going to fall off on its own.  I was not going to spring back to looking like I did in my 20’s.  Eating, drinking and making merry were not good lifestyle choices – and that was becoming more obvious by the day!  But HOW do you change that?  I’m sure the answer to that question is different for every person, but for me, changing what I didn’t like about my physical condition   (and my attitude towards healthy food choices) meant taking a single step.  Literally – just getting up, forcing myself to make time for ME and my physical condition (for which I accepted complete responsibility) and taking one step forward.

I think the moment your foot makes that single step forward is no sooner than the exact time you are really and truly ready to do it.  I imagine it’s like people who stop smoking, stop overeating, or stop working at a job they hate – it will only happen when they’re ready.  It can’t be for anyone else, for a class reunion, for an upcoming wedding – it has to be at a time that may feel like a monumentally selfish moment…but it’s not.  It’s a very simple fact that in order to be lovable, you have to love yourself.  In order for you to be the best person you can offer your spouse, your children, your boss, your parents, your friends, your pet – you have to love yourself enough to put yourself first – at least with regard to doing what it takes to love who you are.  For me that meant taking a step off the couch, away from the table, and out onto a lonely country road.

I chose mornings to carve out some time for my project – the project of making me the best I could be.  I started long before the current walk/run training craze with, oddly enough, that exact training technique – it was all I was capable of!  I walked with some short jogging thrown in.  It was hard.  I had to buy new shoes, some decent shorts and a sports bra, and have my ankles taped daily due to shin splints (thanks, Raymond).  That felt selfish, but I did it anyway.  In March, 1998, I ran my first mile without stopping.  In January of 1999, I ran my first marathon and never looked back.  All the things I’d hated about myself my whole life – bulky, short legs, 5′ 4″ height, square shape – suddenly looked completely different to my own eyes.  I’d lost weight and, short legs notwithstanding, ran continuously for 26.2 miles in 4 hours and 20  minutes – I was proud of me – and that was an amazing feeling.  All because I got up a little earlier one morning and took that first step.  Don’t get me wrong – I could never EVER have accomplished my goals without the support and sacrifice of my family – They have always been and continue to be my biggest fans and my gratitude cannot be expressed in words.

So, here I am now with two full marathons, four half-marathons, over 30 triathlons (turns out riding a bicycle does not require all that much coordination!), and countless 5k races behind me.  16 years have flown by and that brings me back to the original point of all this disclosure.  I’ve wanted to participate in a runDisney event for quite some time now.  In spite of my passion for Disney and all the events I’ve participated in before – I’ve been honestly intimidated by those princesses, those younger people, those tall, willowy runners they show on the runDisney web site – the perky ones with the cute costumes and happy smiles.  I got up this morning, looked in the mirror and reminded myself of a really important lesson – I just needed to take a single step forward.

As of 11:01 Central Standard Time today, I am officially registered for the Glass Slipper Challenge next February (2015) at Walt Disney World.  I will run the Disney Enchanted 10K on Saturday, the 21st and The Disney Princess Half Marathon on Sunday the 22nd.  I will be 50 years old by then – I’m not a princess, not young, and most certainly not willowy, but I will be there…knocking something else off my to-do list before any more time gets away from me.

If you’re planning to be there, too, I’d love to hear from you.

Thank you for reading….Lisa