My name is Tina Savoury and I began running in 2010. Initially, my goal was to burn off some
steam…get the old stress level under control.
I’d been hitting the gym for about 15 years, but was feeling like I needed
to up the ante, so to speak. I figured
that struggling to breath for a half hour would be more productive than
obsessing about what made me go home dissed off every day. So off I went, all alone, to the Running Room
and joined the learn-to-run program.
(As a side note, I have a penchant for swearing, but
apparently this is not allowed. I hope
the not-so-subtle substitutions aren’t distracting.)
Life was grand until week three – run for three minutes,
walk for one. Sweet baby Besus. All I could think about were the runners I
would see on Sunday morning as my sister and I drank coffee and Bailey’s from
the deck of her house on Empire Avenue.
They looked like they were having fun.
They didn’t look as though their lungs were afire. And it’s not like they had started at the Dominion
across the road - they would have ran all the way from the mother-clucking Running
Room. As I finished up my fifth 3-and-1,
I thought “when is this 20 minutes of shell going to get easier”?
After completing the LTR program, the most I could muster in
the years that followed was a 4.11k jaunt around Topsail Pond. I found that doing this three times a week
kept me in good enough condition that I could throw in a 5k fun run here and
there. But then in the spring of 2015,
it happened.
The humidity hit me…and the Tely bug got me.
My cousin told me she was going to have a go at it and had
joined PRC. Interesting, I thought. After pondering this for a couple weeks and
trying out some longer distances on my own, I realized that running any longer
than 4.11k alone is clucking boring and joined the group as well.
This is probably a good time to let Shelly
Gosse know that (in my head) every time I see her, she’s wearing a white gown
and a halo. Not in a sexy way...more saint-like. She got me through my first long run last June (13k to
Skanky Tim’s) and the rest is history.
I’m never going to place in my age group (unless something
catastrophic happens to the ladies in the 40-49 age group) or achieve PB’s race
after race. And that’s okay. I realized last fall that isn’t my goal. At the time, Andrew Tobin was heading to
Florida for a half marathon, so I said I’d join him for a long run. When we returned, soaked to the skin and
thankful not to be lost anymore (that’s another story – sorry, Andrew), another
member asked what I was training for. I
replied “nothing”. Then she says “why
are you running 18k”? I thought about it
and answered “because I can”.
Never again do I want to feel like I felt during week three
of LTR. Since the spring of 2015, I’ve
done the Tely twice, four half-marathons and a handful of other races (including a little end-of-season jaunt known as the Cape to Cabot). I don’t particularly enjoy the actual event
itself, but the end of each race brings a sense of panic that keeps me signing
up for more. I’m terrified of falling
off the wagon. Of missing the group runs
with my peeps. I would rather keep doing
the work and be able run 17k on the weekend for mitts and giggles than ease off
and have to “start over” again. Cuz that
feeling clucks. And I like where I am.
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