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Anyone who has worked out with me, near me, or in a five mile radius of me, knows I HATE running. Hate. I’ve never been good at  it. The entire time I run, from a short 200 Meters to 3 miles, my mind repeats a chorus of “This sucks.” Running is my nemesis.

As I type this, many of my friends are running very long distances. I have several friends running the 2014 Hood To Coast in Oregon. It is a very long twelve person relay from Mount Hood to Seaside, Oregon. I also have several friends running the Seawheeze Marathon in Vancouver. I have watched several of them train over the last several months. I have watched them sweat, breathe, and ache into their goals. Through their training, I have been inspired. Now, hold on! I’m not running a marathon, or long distances or anything. I mean, Rome wasn’t built in a day, right?

Here is the realization I have come to recently. It was after a week’s worth of endurance WODs at my CrossFit box. After each ridiculously slow performance, I was laying on the floor, trying to catch my breath, talking to my friends who had finished minutes ahead of me. I was frustrated. I was tired. I felt old. I was screaming in my head, “I work out four days a week minimum. Why on Earth am I struggling so badly?!” As I came home on a Thursday afternoon, feeling really sorry for myself, I had an epiphany.

The epiphany started  as I was thinking about my lifting. I was proud of how far had come. There was a time, when I started, that the bar was just fine. No plates, just the bar. Then I started adding a little weight, but my goal on my power clean was 65#. That was the weight that was programed most of the time, and I was dying to achieve that pretty little RX next to my name on the whiteboard. So I worked, and I worked, and one day, I was able to clean 65#. Here I am, at least two years removed from that moment. I can clean 65# very quickly and easily. It’s not even a thought in my mind. So, how did I get to that point? Work. I did the programming at the box, of course, but I also worked on my lifts on my own, after class or on a rest day. I worked on it.

Why do I think running is going to be any different? Now, I am a much better runner than I was 3 years ago when I first walked in to the CrossFit box. I couldn’t even run the 400 meter warm up run back then. That has obviously changed; however, I am still super slow. So, that’s where I am now. Time to work on my running. Several days a week, before or after a WOD, I’m going to be running.

I’ve learned through my three year CrossFit journey, if you want to get better at something, you have to do the work. Success is never going to fall in your lap. I’ve designed a schedule for me, and will follow the CrossFit endurance program (thanks to our awesome trainers at 918 CrossFit) and I’m going to run. A lot. If anyone wants to run with me, come on (you just better be slow) or at least be there to provide oxygen when I finish.