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Doing good feels good

Hi y'all

Another week has come and gone and today I wanna share a story with y'all about sharing, doing good and feeling good. For me running is as much a sport I share as it is a solo experience. Now for those following me around you guys know that about me. For those that are just getting to know me: trust me there is no sport out there that in solitary makes you feel like you're part of a group. Just one of the levels of duality in runnning. You are the one doing it but by sharing your run with others, be that virtual or in real life, you will meet the most welcoming, the most supportive group of people ever. I have tried and lived through many sports but only in running did I find likeminded people that set out to better themselves and cheer on others along the way. Only in running have I found people that truely want to see you succeed and only in running have I picked up runners on the brink of giving up and have I been picked up when I was about to give it up altogether.



So this week as I tried to overcome the almost crippeling and sometimes overwhelming feeling of never getting out of this lockdown, the sense of sadness and even the anger of never doing enough, never being enough and never being able to just make everyone happy...I decided to just stop. Stop trying to help people that clearly don't need help, stop trying to please people that will never feel like I've done enough, stop trying to tread carefully and I just stopped trying to help out all together. Why? because it is tiresome and energy draining and it's not worth it. I want to be around people that give me energy, people that want to make an effort and people that make me happy. Be that in the virtual world or the real one, the latter posing all sorts of problems now but still.....be around people that have my back, share the spark of life, get chi, have an incling on what the magic of silence entails and are just basically....well not trying to teach me a lesson, put me in my spot or cut me down. Once again I needed to dó something positive so I did.

With all of our training sessions on the road to NYC cancelled our group doesn't get to meet up and I need that sense of group, of sharing of being-in-this-together. Especially since running NYC marathon is more than just the distance. We are all fundraising and trying to get as much money as we possibly can to make sure nobody will ever face what most of us have faced or are still facing today. Thát sense of community is hard to built when you can't train together and get together so....I created an ALSrunners group on Strava and just yesterday I created a digital clubrun and I invited everyone that wanted to participate on our whatsapp group. Now there's 15 of us in total and thusfar 7 runners actually ran. But not only that: our whatsapp group exploded today with sweaty selfies and messages of runners running and enjoying themselves. Just by creating this group, organizing a digital clubrun and promising the participants a little surprise as a reward....BOOM there it was....our community. By creating an opportunity to share, I felt like I was part of something bigger than me and thát made my run today. I ran 12km and it felt soooooo good.

All in all I can honestly say that doing good equals feeling good. I love getting people together, I love sharing that feeling of doing something together and sending out that tiny message with what I would like to call the holy trinity of running (Wisdom, Luck and Bling) I get to feel good about myself. Isn't that just neat? So this week was good. Let's see what the upcoming week has in store for us.



That's it for now, train sole & be safe!
Until we read again
As always
Love Marlies



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