You prove them wrong.

It was back in February, snowing like crazy if I remember correctly, and I was texting with my friend Jenny about signing up for the Nashville Half Marathon. I wanted to say no, because honestly, I had only ever done a 5k. Which was hard enough. 

But something in me thought this…“I’m letting fear take over.” 

Fear of not finishing.

Fear of having to walk the whole thing.

Fear of not being as trained as her.

Fear. Fear. Fear.

{Dear Lord, why do I let fear win sometimes. That is not acceptable. Especially when the girl you are going to walk with’s husband wrote the book on punching fear in the face.} —–> Jon Acuff’s Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work that Matters

So, without taking any more time to think about it… I text back LET’S DO IT!

There is something about having someone else hold you accountable that keeps you motivated. Am I right?

I would have absolutely never said yes if Jenny wasn’t going to say yes too. But one thing about me? When I say yes…I mean it.

So after saying yes there was no going back on my word.

Trust me, about 3 weeks out, when I hadn’t trained a single lick… I wanted to back out. Again —- in creeps fear. Jenny had text me and asked how my training was going.

My response, “The farthest I’ve walked is down the street to my neighbors house… does that count as training? Oh and I got my mail today. The mailbox is farrrrrr.”

I had NUMEROUS people ask me:

1. If I was crazy for thinking I could finish without training.

2. If I was REALLY going to walk the entire thing and not run at all.

3. If I was gonna get picked up on the “too slow” bus {those of you who are runners know what I’m talking about} and have to be bused to the finish line.

One thing I didn’t do…. I didn’t let anyone else’s opinion or lack of faith hold me back. I knew that walking 13.1 miles was not going to be easy without training. I knew that I was going to be doing something that would push my body to new limits.  I knew that I was going to be sore as hell the next week.

And I knew that Jenny was going to be right next to me the whole way…motivating me to finish.

By mile 5 I was feeling like a rockstar. The Nashville course is vey hill-y. “VERY” MIGHT EVEN BE AN UNDERSTATEMENT.

Mile 8 was when I first started to think… Wow, my legs hurt. Ha! But really.

Jenny and I had such a great time chatting about life and kids and work and husbands and how I now want to move to Nashville that it took my mind off the fact that I felt like my feet might fall off.

When we came up on mile 11 I knew we had this. I knew I could finish.

I might have been the only race participant to cross the finish line on my phone. True story. The guy on the microphone was like, “WHO ARE YOU CALLING????” Hehe.

Jeff was calling me as I was walking across the finish line because he was trying to locate us to get pictures of our finish.

Finishing NEVER felt better. To all of the people who said it’s not possible I say this:

1. It is possible.

2. I did it.

3. You were right about being sore. #icouldnotwalkforaweek

We finished in 3 hours and 19 minutes which wasn’t too shabby for a chick who hadn’t walked a single mile in the last year. I guess keeping up with these crazy children does truly payoff.

A ton of our friends from our hometown were in Nashville for the race too so we had such a great weekend!

Including knocking some things off my bucket list.

Mechanical bull — check.

The bull riding came the night BEFORE the race. No way could I have done this after.

In case you want to see how long I lasted OR how hard I fell…enjoy:

I screamed about 80 times and had the biggest burn on my elbow and arm from falling. Yea, no one told me falling was gonna hurt. #jerks

Is there something you’ve been thinking about doing, but you are letting fear hold you back. If so, read Jon’s book and then go walk a half marathon. I promise it will inspire you to punch fear in the face more often.