Running helps rebuild

“The road of life twists and turns and no two directions are ever the same. Yet our lessons come from the journey, not the destination.” – Don Williams Jr. (US Senator)

“You never know where or when you will find something you love.” – Lena Dikranian.

The new year is often a time of reflection and a time for change for many – using the beginning of another year to achive a goal or stick to a resolution. As many Canadian runners think of their lives and their running; faces often turned looking unfocused out frost-glazed windows at cold winter landscapes – it seems an apt time to tell a tale of change, of running and rebuilding.

Lena
Lena Dikranian is an attractive, young woman working for the federal government in Ottawa – the nation’s capital that swims in a sea of government buildings, suits and ID badges. Born in Montreal, Lena enjoyed the night-life and partying opportunities that her lively city offered as a young adult. She says she spent most of my time going out and having fun. Fun began to overtake everything and time slipped by until one day she stopped for a moment.”One day I woke up and looked at myself in the mirror and didn’t recognize the person looking back. That is when I realized my life needed a change.” Like a new year’s resolution Lena decided to change her life, rebuild and discover who she really was and wanted to be.

Lena packed up and moved to a new city and started to rebuild. It was on this journey that Lena also discovered running.

Running

“I signed up to the Learn to Run program with the Running Room. They started us off on the 1 minute run 1 minute walk, the following week it was a 2 minute run followed by a minute walk all the way till we can actually run 10 mins and walk 1. I was actually worried that I would never even make it to running 10 minutes straight. I hated all of it because I was a slow runner. But I did it! I figured it shouldn’t end there…so I signed up for the 5K program where at the end of it I was to run my first 5K race.”

Like other parts of her life, running progressed and life and running led her down new paths.

“That is where everything changed. Thanks to my 5K instructor Shawn, I feel in love with running. He pushed his group and became our cheerleader. I ran my first 5K race – the St-Patties Race (in Ottawa). He made sure no one in his group fell behind and made sure he was the one from our group to cross the finish line last so no one would feel discouraged.Thanks to him and his encouragement I kept running. I even ended up running a few more 5ks and even a few 10Ks. What I found super cool was, a few years back running my second Ottawa Race Weekend 10K, as I crossed the start line, I heard my name. “Go Lena!” Low and behold years later, he was still there encouraging me.”

Through the help of giving runners, instructors and the running community, Lena found herslef and more direction. Running is never the single solution, answer or remedy, but as many of us have found it can help heal, push the mind and body to places of peace or understanding. Like life, running too can be a journey filled with ups and downs and often with a start but no clear destination.

After having started her journey, having made a change and life for herself in Ottawa, Lena reflects on her running now.

“I am by no means an athlete but there is something about running. You let everything go when you run, all your stress and worry disappear and you have a chance to take in everything around you. There is so much beauty around us that on a daily basis and we miss it because we are in such a hurry to get to our destination…I find with running the destination doesn’t matter, it is what you get out of it.” Welcome to the Canadian running community Lena. From the hilly streets of Halifax to the mild pacific coast of Vancouver, fellow runners are on their own journeys, think of their fellow footsteps on your next run, you are not alone.

Run on my friends and have a Happy New Year.

Do you have a running story to share?

legsnlungs@hotmail.com

See you on the roads or in the blogopshere.