I was a very chubby child.

I was raised by my grandparents and was the only child, so I didn’t get much physical activity growing up. I remember getting McDonald’s as a treat after school, but looking back, it must have been almost every day. When I was a toddler, I got pneumonia and, since then, struggled with asthma. But not only was being active physically uncomfortable, it was emotionally uncomfortable too.

I remember the first time I was aware of my body at the age of seven. I was at school, and we were having a dance party in the gym in our first-grade class. I was dancing with my friend, whose name I cannot remember now, jumping around in circles with my hands in the air. At some point during our time bouncing around, that little girl looked at me said that my boobs were big. I was seven, I never was aware of my body, especially not my boobs or their size. I stopped jumping, and still I never do.

The older I got, the more weight I put on, like every other little girl as she gets older. But anytime I mentioned my size to my grandma, her favorite word to use was big boned. I think it was a way for her to tell me that the weight I held wasn’t my fault, but in doing so, I grew up thinking I had no control over my body. I was 205 pounds at the age of thirteen, which fortunately was my heaviest. I was overweight, had extreme anxiety, ate poorly, and was never physically active. But I was big boned and I would never be super thin. ‘Super thin’ is a relative term, but I would never have been considered skinny; it was just the way I was built.

Bringing it to now, I’m 168 pounds, I go to the gym five to six days a week, and I am currently training for a half marathon. It feels good to be at the place my childhood self always wished she could be at. She never thought she could run one mile, and definitely nothing more. Still, my inner child’s self-doubt and insecurities will speak. It’s hard to have faith that you can do something when your whole life, you thought you couldn’t. 

I can’t, I won’t, I will never, I won’t ever, are all phrases that circulate my mind when I think about running. I can’t run that far, that long, that hard. I never thought I could do it, even when I was actively running. When I run, my mind circulates the idea that I can’t keep going and that I need to stop, and I do. 

The moment I realized I could ignore that voice and keep going was when I ran my first mile. It was also the moment I realized I could run. Training for a half-marathon is terrifying. The idea of running just two miles is unbelievable, let alone thirteen. Even though a part of me thinks I’m crazy and could never run 13.1 miles, I will do it anyway. 

Even though I wasn’t built for running, I will run anyway.