Does everybody like, I mean LOVE Rocky Balboa as much as I do? I remember watching the movie when I was a kid..I mean grown adult because I am not old enough to have been young when Rocky started his boxing career, silly!! So anyways Mr. Balboa, yes when I saw the movie I didn’t get what an amazing story was playing out right in front of me. While I was not a boxing fan in my early years I could not grasp what else was happening. I knew there were great things happening such as the love story between Adrienne and Rocky or the complicated relationship between Paulie and Rocky and why did Apollo hug Rocky after he beat him? I still get goose bumps when I think about it. What I didn’t realize that when I was watching this movie that it was becoming a part of who I am. So much so that even when I graduated from College do you know what song played as I walked across the mini-stage?? Yeah eye of the tiger! Now I’m not saying the universe was telling me I should be an Italian Boxer and move to New York but for the record I almost did. Luckily I have very wise friends who talked me out of it.
It took me many years to realize that I like to do things the hard way or as I’m starting to call it Rocky Style. Some of us are really slow learners and for that I blame the awesome cartoons of the 80’s like Jem and the Holograms or of course my favorite Rainbow Bright because they kept me so busy I missed out on all the really useful information like how to do things the easy way.
So I get to cross one thing off my list this year and that’s my marathon! I am not talking about the marathon of life either! I am not a fan of running much to the misconception of me maybe running but I decided it was time to stop whining about and just do it. Do it I did! I had not been running that much and threw myself into training with great enthusiasm and what I realized is that the body is an amazing piece of machinery for the most part anyways. It wasn’t long into my training did I develop the dreaded IT band issues which made running very painful. While some people told me should just stop running and there were other marathons I could do later. That was NOT an option. I was and am tired of putting things off. No I will run this marathon if it kills me like it did the first marathoner (well I don’t really want to die it’s more of a metaphor really). Long story short I started having pain at mile 5-6 in my knee but it didn’t stop me I was crossing that finish line and I wanted to smile when I did it. However, around mile 25 I think the running was getting the best of me. Except I had what most people don’t have, amazing friends who ran with her and while I didn’t want to hear anybody’s voice but my own it was awesome to have them there to help me. After I crossed the finish line I finally let myself cry which was something I was holding in since mile 21 when I realized I was actually going to pull this off. So I crossed the finish line and I smiled, I cried, and after some pretzels I laughed too. I had my Rocky Balboa moment when I was crossing the finish. Honestly that is the only way I would do it because I roll Italian Stallion style!
musingsofacurlygirl 