Page 110 - Demo

110 || FITNESS MAGAZINE || JULY 2015I will never forget the day that Glen came home from the field and I bolted out the door to get my typical two-mile run in (the amount I had determined I had to run in order to eat chocolate and not get fat) and try to clear my head a little. I quickly pounded out those two miles and came to the realization that I could not go back home, I wasn%u2019t ready to enter the real world quite yet and so I kept running.Five sweat and adrenaline-releasing miles later (think of the chocolate I could eat now) I finally returned home and something was different, something that changed in me. In running those extra three miles (two miles further than I had ever gone before) I had felt it, the big running %u201cO%u201d, the high, and the release. I felt calm yet euphoric, at peace and yet buzzing with excitement.I had been struggling with anxiety since the birth of our first daughter and though I was regularly seeing a therapist and after years of fighting meds was now on a precious little pill that kept me in balance it wasn%u2019t until this day running the hot pavement of those Florida streets that I felt at complete peace with myself. Somehow completely exhausting myself had become the now relaxing part of my day.unning had given me something I had been looking for a long time, a purpose outside of being a wife and mother. It had become the piece of me that I was missing. It was this incredible time where I could get away from it all, find peace, and release all this pent up adrenaline and anxiety. Along the roads I found solace and energy. I found a sense of being and a calling.Call it fate, God, divine intervention but in those moments alone pounding the streets running had given so much to me and I wanted to give it back, I wanted others to feel what I felt and so I started my blog alishaperkins.com (originally runlikeam0ther.com) to try and excite others into hitting the pavement and find that elusive running %u201cO%u201d.There was a time when running was fun for everyone, you may not remember it now but I promise it existed. Remember as a kid when you played boys chase girls, tag, red rover, or my personal favorite %u201ckick the can%u201d? It seemed every game you played centered around running and you did it not because you had to or because you were training for a race but because you loved it. You loved the wind in your hair and the way you felt like you could fly. You loved the freedom and possibility it gave you. I wanted to remind people of that and make running seem attainable. I wanted people to know you do not have to look like a gazelle to run because if this short, stocky, pony type body can do it so can you.