Covering the Southwest Middle School Tiger Trot this weekend for Albert Lea magazine and the newspaper, I started to get an itch.

It’s that same itch I get when I’m ready to embark on a new home decorating project or I’m looking forward to planting my garden.

This time, I was getting an itch to do something I haven’t done in years: run.

I’ll admit it, I know it’s not going to be easy, but that’s OK. I’m ready to try.

The summer before I moved to Albert Lea, I ran a half marathon.

Up to that point, I had never considered myself the running type. I was never a part of the track or cross country teams, and I was always one of the last to finish the mile in middle and high school gym class.

Despite that, I always seem to develop friendships with people who run. And like Blue Zones founder Dan Buettner always points out, half the battle with being healthy is surrounding yourself with people with the same goals.

In college, one of my roommates ran three to five miles at least three or four days a week, and that was when I started putting in some effort to run.

A separate friend and I decided to run a half marathon the summer of 2006 — which I was in no way prepared for, but somehow survived. Though we were some of the last ones to finish the race, that didn’t matter. We still did it.

On Saturday night, I talked with a friend of mine and told her my plans for her and me to run — not walk — the Tiger Trot next year.

She was on board.

Around the same time, I was reading updates of another friend of mine who I grew up with in Virginia. My friend had lost 60 pounds and ran the Blue Ridge Marathon — called America’s toughest road marathon — on Saturday. It was his first time running a marathon, though he had run a half marathon and others before that.

Reading about his success was just the small kick I needed to seal the deal.

On top of that, another man who organizes a running team in my hometown that my friend is a part ofcontacted me to see if I wanted to be a part of his group for support. The support came just at the right time.

While I don’t see myself running a marathon in the next year, at this point it is my goal to run the Tiger Trot next year with plans to run a half marathon in 2017.

I consider myself to be a hardworking and determined person, but when it comes to health and wellness, that has been  one of my toughest battles in life.

Those of you who know me know this is going to take some work, and I hope you will feel welcome to encourage me along the way.

Now, if only I didn’t have to run in public.

 

Sarah Stultz is the managing editor of the Tribune. Her column appears every Tuesday.