I Run This Body #MOVEment
Please enjoy the guest blog from our Ambassador Dorothy Beal from Mile Posts and creator of the phrase, movement and popular social hashtag #IRunThisBody. To download the watch face, please click here!
While training for my first marathon surviving my long runs was a major concern. I wasn’t a life long runner and didn’t enjoy running or moving for 4 hours at a time.
I had started running in college as a way to lose weight and stuck with it when my mom suggested that training for a marathon would change my life. I wasn’t sure how running 26.2 miles was going to do anything other than kill me but I reasoned that it was a good way to stay out of trouble on the weekends.
The thought of running 20 miles scared me half to death, but slowly as the mileage crept up, I started to believe in myself and the power that my mind had over me. On these runs I would memorize quotes to help me get through, to remind me that I was stronger than I knew. As the miles wore on and my brain felt like it was turning to mush faster than my legs, long quotes would get shorter and shorter until just a few key words were left.
One such quote was this one from General George S. Patton Jr, a US Army General and 1912 Olympian.
Now if you are going to win any battle you have to do one thing. You have to make the mind run the body. Never let the body tell the mind what to do. The body will always give up. It is always tired morning, noon, and night. But the body is never tired if the mind is not tired. When you were younger the mind could make you dance all night, and the body was never tired…You’ve always got to make the mind take over and keep going.
As a young woman barely in her 20s I could relate to this quote. I loved dancing and could stay up all night doing so. If I could make my body stay up all night dancing then I could make my body stay up all morning running. It seemed that I had to take charge of my body and not let it give up.It had always given up. As a high school freshman faking hyperventilating to get out of running laps, to a college student who didn’t chase after any dreams because they seemed too hard. Giving up or not starting at all was my specialty.
If I wanted change in my life, I had to change.
On a run as the words blended together I started repeating to myself internally and out loud. I run this body. I run this body. I am in control of my destiny.
It stuck.
I started applying it to all areas of my life.
If there was something upsetting me, it was my choice to let it negatively affect me or to move on. #irunthisbody
If I was scared of a challenge that presented itself, I had the choice to let the fear hold me back or push past it. #irunthisbody
So while it started on a run, about a run, it became about taking charge of your life, determining your own destiny and using your favorite form of MOVEment to help you get there. The hashtag #irunthisbody along with it’s sister hashtag #IHaveARunnersBody now have over 46,000 in tags on instagram! If you love the mantra – make it yours! Download the I Run This Body Garmin watch face and head over to instagram to follow Mile Posts.
