By Terri Gilbert
Week 1, September 12, 2011.

As some of you may have read in last week’s newsletter, I was chosen as the first Blogger for the No Boundaries program. I want to introduce myself a little. My name is Terri Gilbert. I have a husband who I’ve been married to for 17 years; a 13 year old son and 12 year old daughter who are both actively involved in sports in their respective schools. I live in Clay and work full-time in a downtown office.  

When I read Fleet Feet’s newsletter and noticed they were looking for a Blogger for the program, I submitted my writing sample. I was silently hoping, but not really anticipating my submission would be selected. I have been on their email list for some time and had previously watched other runners be successful through the program and thought to myself- this is the program I need. I’ve tried numerous other begin to run programs but none has been able to successfully transform me into a “runner.” 

I received confirmation from Ashley at Fleet Feet that I was chosen to be the new Blogger. Was I still interested? Was I still willing to let others share in my journey to becoming a “runner”? My answer was yes. The pressure is on.  

So here I am at Week 1 of 10. With anticipation and nervous butterflies in my stomach, I went to Onondaga Lake Park to meet my Coach and running group. The whole time I’m thinking to myself, can I do this? Will I really be successful or will I just end up embarrassing myself? We were divided into small groups based on information we submitted when we registered for the program. Then I met my Coach- Jessica. She seems nice however, I wonder if I will still think so 6 weeks from now when she makes our group run in the cold & rain of October. Our group is mostly women with 1 male. One woman has never run at all before; one says her daughter tells her she does the “shuffle” run. I feel I’m in the middle of the two so I think this group is where I belong.

Over the next 10 weeks, we will get to know each other and push each other to finish. I’m happy to say we all made it through our first group run. It was challenging, but attainable. According to the program director we will receive an email with running “homework” for the week.  I don’t want to let my group down, so I am already planning what nights I can go out on my own for our “homework” runs.

As I was leaving the park, Lady Gaga was on the radio singing her song, “Edge of Glory”. I thought that was a fitting end to the day.