Strong Legs

Saturday morning, I reached a goal that if you would have mentioned to me three months ago, I would have laughed in your face and called you crazy. I am not a runner, I never have been, and even now have a hard time imagining that I will ever claim to be one. I've always enjoyed working out, I loved the challenge of competitive tumbling and cheerleading when I was younger, but running was by far always my weak point. It didn't matter how much I was "in shape," it was very difficult for me and I was just plain terrible at it.

In high school when we would have to go through the yearly physicals to be able to participate in athletics, there were a couple of years that I was told I had a heart murmur. They would refer me to my primary doctor, who would always say that I had a "very healthy" heart and she felt for sure that they were just hearing an echo.

A couple of years go by and I am now in college. I go to the doctor for a sick visit, and she just happens to hear this murmur that we had been concerned with a couple years back. She sends me to a cardiologist for an echo, and they were finally able to make a diagnosis- it seems as if I actually had a birth defect that was never detected (because of it's location, thus making it extremely difficult to hear), called an atrial septal defect or ASD. This basically meant that I had a hole in my heart that typically closes when you are born but mine did not.

Since I was having no active symptoms, they decided that I would just need to have a yearly echo so that they could monitor blood flow, the size of my heart, etc. Two years go by, and by the time my senior year in college arrives, they are already able to see a difference in the size of my heart. Apparently the right side of my heart (the "healthy" side) was overcompensating for the left because of the ASD, and because of this, the right side was larger than the left- which is opposite of what it should be. This caused some concern, and I was referred to a cardiologist at Vanderbilt who decided it was time to repair the defect.

Because of the amazing advances in medicine, he was able to repair the ASD without performing open heart surgery. He actually was able run this closure device through a groin artery, much like they would if they were performing a heart cath on someone. I was able to go home the following day, and have had no further issues whatsoever. Even though this was typically a pediatric procedure (since it was a birth defect), my incredible cardiologist states that I was a "text book version" of how the procedure was supposed to work in an adult.

During all this, the doctors explained to me that this was likely the reason why it was so difficult for me to run, and were surprised that I had no other symptoms from it. So if you ever hear someone say that "running is a mental thing," I completely agree! I think that because it was so hard for me for so many years, I had just written it off as something that I would never be good at and would never enjoy.

Enter bootcamp, my incredibly encouraging husband, and a healing God, and we have officially completed our first 10K together as of this weekend- the Strong Legs 5K and 10K, benefitting Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. And believe it or not, I think I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I kind if enjoyed it. There is no way I would be able to achieve a goal like this had it not been for God's grace surrounding me and the physicians who cared for me. I give God all the glory!

"But those who hope in the Lord

Will renew their strength.

They will soar on wings like eagles;

They will run and not grow weary,

They will walk and not be faint."

-Isaiah 40:31

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