Becoming a Cheerleader! or, Why I Have No Voice Today.

I was going to put a picture here of some crazy-possessed cheerleader. (By the by, "crazy cheerleader" pulls up all kinds of interesting things on google images - but I digress.) I was a CRAZY-POSESSED cheerleader on Sunday. (Minus that whole, splits, jumping, flips, stuff.)

When my cousin Brandy signed up for the Tobacco Road Half Marathon, obv. I knew I would volunteer. She's a runner and has always inspired me. I wanted to make sure to cheer her on! (She did an AWESOME job. I'm super-proud of her!) And Regan, being awesome, said she would come, too.

--> This is B. I don't know how to make captions.

Anywhoo, we got up early enough to bask in the glow of the super moon and realize that we didn't really have an assignment. So, we sort of made our own.

And you know what that assignment was? It was to cheer on EVERY SINGLE RUNNER that passed the 3-mile mark for the full and half marathons, and then head to mile 11 to cheer on the vast majority of the half-marathoners getting ready to finish up. (Ok, and 3 marathon runners who actually finished ahead of many of the half-ers. um. WOW.)

At some point I felt like it was my job, nay, obligation to encourage everyone. Y'all. I yelled for 3 hours straight. I had so much fun! Mostly, I loved being able to make people laugh when they were looking pretty derned miserable. Regan talked about a couple of her fav lines. I was totally on fire if I do say so myself.

I kid I kid.

Ok, I don't really kid, I was getting some good chuckles. But, then again, when you've been on your feet that long, anything is funny. Maybe they were losing it by that point.

All that said, I am feeling so inspired by these folks. There were literally people of every shape and size. They were slow, they were fast, they were skinny, they were sooo not. But you know what? Each of them saw themselves as being able to accomplish something the vast majority of people cannot do (coincidentally, one of my favorite motivating lines I was yelling on Sunday). There was something in them that made them believe that they could go out there, slap on some shoes, and run for 13.1 (or 26.2!) miles!

And I'm one of them. I think I can run 13.1 miles. It might take me all day, but I can do it. And so can Regan, Alisha, and Shruthi. And it doesn't matter what goal you might have, whether it's a race, or a weight-loss goal, or a professional goal. Being able to carry around that knowledge - that "by god, I can do this!" mentality - you'll give yourself so much more power.

So here's to everyone that's accomplished a goal recently...

You are so full of AWESOME!

Sarah