Three

Week three, session three, three minutes.

I can jog for three minutes without stopping to walk. THREE

When that realization hit me this evening as I did my cool down walk it was the most overwhelming feeling I've had in a long time. The sun was almost set, I'm in a neighborhood where nobody knows me (except maybe as the lady with the wiener dog), and I just achieved something I never thought I would. I can run. (Run sounds better doesn't it?)

I have cerebral palsy. Most people don't know. Most people probably can't tell. I'm one of the lucky ones. I have one of the more rare types. I have mixed CP, meaning two forms. Luckily they are both pretty mild and I've learned to manage them. I have the spastic form (tight muscle group) that effects the muscles of my right calf. I can't lift my toes very high off the ground and if the muscles get really tight I can't plant my heel flat when standing. (Try to imagine your foot stuck in a one to two inch slightly spongy heel.) I also have the Ataxia form which effects balance and coordination. This one isn't so bad...but anyone that knows me and spent any length of time with me has probably seen me lose my balance for apparently no reason. I just look like a klutz pretty much.

When one leg doesn't quite work like the other AND you are a bit unsteady, doing coordinated rhythmic tasks as a child wasn't very fun. Everything just took so much longer for me to do. I've always hated running because I couldn't (still can't quite do it now) get my heel planted so I was all jerky looking...like when a runner pulls something and run limp run limps to the finish line. I always lied and said my leg hurt....and then avoided running whenever possible.

I'm doing this 5K with my mom and my sister mainly to prove to Mom that she didn't break me. I was born 10 weeks early and she blames herself. I want her to forgive herself. 32 years later and I still see the guilt in her eyes whenever something physical frustrates me.

When I got back to my apartment, I had to call her. I cried and she thought something bad had happened. "No Mom, I'm happy."
"You are happy because you are crying?" she asks.
"No mom, I'm crying because I'm happy."
"What's going on?"
"Mom, I can JOG for 3 MINUTES! and at the very end of the jog I went ahead and RAN just because I COULD. I'm okay Mom I'm not broken okay? I just had to put enough time into it."

No need to discuss week two. That's the past. That is completed. Week three is done. On to week four.

I can run.