Smile and friendship. That’s what running is to Paola, in the story of how she came to slip into her shoes and tackle the Deejay Ten.
A difficult period, my strong personality, and a fellow marathoner throwing down the gauntlet are probably the reasons that brought me closer to running. The fatigue of mountain treks has always had a highly therapeutic, cathartic I would say, effect on me. Running immediately seemed to me to be a fairly similar treatment that has the great advantage of allowing it to be taken more frequently.
I start with a walk around the block. First once, then twice, then three times, and I realize how good it makes me feel. And it’s good for my mind: one day when I felt like a bomb had exploded inside me, I went for a run and met a person who has known me all my life who said, “You have smiling eyes what’s been going on?” The ride had made me smile, and that’s no small thing, believe me, for someone as rough and frugal in dispensing smiles as I am.
I run to clear my head, to smile, at least a little. That’s what I instinctively wrote down when I filled out the Runlovers form, without thinking also because I never, ever thought they would choose me.
I have been registered for the Deejay Ten since May when I was diagnosed with an injury and foreshadowed painful therapy with related “downtime” of several months.
Having a goal to heal quickly would certainly have helped me if a series of other more or less important aches and pains had not come along. So I started running again recently, but just a little bit.
Betty, my Pacer, has equally promised to take me to the finish line, and I am doing everything I can to make sure that happens in a dignified manner. And I’m loaded. Even more charged since I received the RunLovers runner “kit” from Nike. Excited as a child about Santa Claus.
DJ ten for me means friendship. Because I have yet to meet a person with a passion for running who is not a beautiful person. Maybe one day with some of these I will run my first half marathon, which still remains my dream in the drawer.
For now, feet on the ground, blazing new Nike well laced up, let’s “start” the Nike+ Running Club app and run this Deejay Ten!