The feel of a start line is unlike any other. The building adrenaline, excitement, the body’s anticipation of the challenge that lays out ahead. The pure passion of the sport. To think at one point of my life I was told that running was something I needed to put up on the shelf. That with 70 years still left to live (at least) I needed to give up something that made me feel alive. The most terrifying and saddest part of it all was I listened. Then life has a funny way of putting things back in your path when it knows you are ready to find your way over the mountain. After years of reciting, “my body just doesn’t run” I decided that I needed to figure out a way for this to become a part of my life again. This is when I stumbled over chiropractic. I was clueless at the possibilities, but I thought it was worth a shot.
So, there I was the morning of August 23rd. 6.55 miles lay ahead of me of the Half Marathon Relay I had committed to with my best friend. I had never been as scared at a start line as I was that foggy, rainy morning. Two weeks previous I had been sporting a walking boot since June, after a very heartbreaking foot injury and I hadn’t ran more than 3 miles since then. A part of me knew taking on this race was crazy and a part of me knew that I could do this.
A year ago, before I started getting adjusted I would have never been at this place. I wouldn’t be standing at this start line, I wouldn’t be trusting my body’s ability and I wouldn’t be mentally confident to trust what I knew it could do. I probably would have listened to someone tell me that my foot was in no shape to run again, that I needed to pollute my body with medication and that this injury was defining me instead of allowing me to grow from it. On the surface simply put, chiropractic has given me among many things, my ability to run back (Not once, but twice now!). It has allowed my bodies nervous system to function in the capacity that it needs to carry me the miles. Underneath the surface though, chiropractic has given me a new perspective on the beautiful thing that our bodies are when we take care of them. Every race I run, I do not do them for the medals or the miles or the T-shirts. I do them mostly because I can. I was given this gift back and I treasure every run, the good and the bad. I run every race for someone and always allow the race to define who that person is and that is who my finish medal goes to. On this foggy morning I knew undoubtedly half way through, that this race belonged to Dr. Ness for helping to give me this gift back and for helping me to see my bodies potential to be awesome.
-Autumn E
