Over the weekend I realized that this month is my four year running anniversary. You can view my original blog posts about it and will notice that on the very first day I decided that I wanted to be the valedictorian of the running class. You may also note that it has been eight years since I have been blogging in some form on various platforms.

The start line of the Nike Human Race in August 2008. Thanks to ATHLETE Director Dave on Flickr for sharing this photo. You can visit his photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/athletemovie/.

I got back to thinking that this month was my running anniversary when out of the blue I thought about one of my classmates/running mates, the only other female in the class and how she was so quick to shoot down my idea of running in my first 10k, The Nike Human Race. Emily, my classmate, who never did her running homework was so quick to point out that there was a time limit of 1:30. Thanks for the positive reinforcement Emily! I remember telling her that the clock started on that 1:30 time limit as soon as the last person crossed the start line and that I had not intention of being near that person.

I’m so happy that I never let her negative thoughts convince me not to sign up for that race. It ended up being one of the more special moments of my running life. If I had let Emily’s negative thoughts talk me out of it, I may have never tried to run longer than 5 miles which had been my longest distance up to that point. Now I run half marathons and full marathons.

I wonder what Emily is up to these days. Is she still running? Is still signing up to do things she doesn’t like as she often said about running? Has she let her negative thoughts keep her from trying something new?

Four years later and I’m still running and still love this sport like no other.