This is week two. And thanks to my shoes and mom I'm starting to like it more than I thought I would.
Apparently these posts about what I'm doing and how I'm liking running or not liking running is having an affect on other non-runners.
Case in point:
Logan.
She and I have been friends since forever, but I think we really became friends in high school. She turned 16 on October 6 of our sophomore year, and I didn't turn 16 until February 6. So she would pick me up for school, and we would ride around the "cool" part of town before we had to be at school. (Did I mention that she lives right down the street...about three houses to be exact.)
She had this boyfriend. A boy I was basically in LOVE with. He was the prettiest boy I'd ever seen and the son of a family friend. Needlesstosay, he was never interested in me that way, and after a while I got over it. (We were more like brother and sister towards each other.) But I never got over how pretty he was.
Anyway, he was a freshman at ASU in Jonesboro. And every morning I would get in her car to listen to them yell at each other. It's funny now to think about it, but back then I was a little nervous. And every day the fighting would always end the same way.
After 15 or 20 minutes of her yelling "Tyler, GO to clean-up," she would look at me and sigh. Ashten doesn't want to listen to me yell at you anymore. So please just get up and go to clean up...Ok....I will talk to you when I get out of school...bye. But on the very rare occasions, she would just simply hang up.
Toward the end of our junior year in high school, Tyler, her boyfriend, was in a car wreck in Jonesboro, and he died. It was hands down the hardest thing I have ever went through. He was my first friend and person close to my age that died. I was 17.
After he died, my friendship with Logan changed. I'm not really sure how to explain it, but I think we both realized what we had lost. And this horrible thing knit us together for life.
Once the hype calmed down and her real grieving process began, people stopped coming over to check on her. But I didn't. I would got stay at her house on nights when she was home alone and didn't want to be by herself. And eventually, time heals all wounds, even though a wound like that can only heal so much. We are both still and will be forever scarred.
We both went to college; she in Fayetteville, and I in Conway. But our friendship has always just picked up from the last place it left off. And that's what I love about her as a friend.
When I moved to Little Rock, we began talking more and more. And planning hang-out dates, dinners, and drunken nights where we've tried to remember old cheerleading dances to songs we can't really remember.
Yesterday she sent me a text message that said Make me run!!!!!!!!! I said Get your shoes ready. I will pick you up tomorrow. We are going around 7.
And that was it. A revolution has begun. She has made it well-known to me throughout our friendship that she is NOT a runner. In fact, she told me yesterday that she can run to the mailbox and back, but that's about it.
She wants to run, and I want to help her run. All it takes it a text saying we are going here at this time, get your shoes on, I'll pick you up in 10.
This is what friends do. Support other friends. I told her it would not be a bed of roses. It's going to be sweltering hot, sweat will pour, and she will probably hate running and me at first. But it will get better. She will get better.
It's all about accountability and a little self-motivation. You have to want to do it before you can actually do it. And it helps to have someone there to push you along when you really don't want to do it.
So today, Logan and I will run. It will be the start of something new and good for her. And it will be the next chapter in our friendship. Yippie. I've got a feeling this will be good. So stay tuned for Logan's post-run update tomorrow.
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