More than 100 people rang in the New Year a different way at the Waynesboro YMCA.
For me, it was running 1.6 miles on the South River Greenway in my first-ever glow run, after a three-hour workout with weights, some cardio, a few sets of abs and a long bout of stretching.
We called it New Year’s Revolution, the thinking being, twofold, that we wanted to invite people to jumpstart their New Year’s resolutions a day early, and that we realize the change in thinking this would require.
New Year’s Eve is supposed to be about rollicking fun involving copious amounts of alcohol, and I’m not judging when I put it that way.
Trust me. I rang in 2015 with more than my own share, then woke up the next morning and ran a 5K.
Somehow, some way. Not anything that I’d recommend, that.
The New Year’s Revolution at the Waynesboro Y was a safe way to celebrate the change of the calendar, and a healthy one.
For me, it reminds me where I was two New Year’s ago. As the calendar flipped to 2014, I weighed in at a hefty 280 pounds, and I decided to do something about it.
The something that I decided to do was to try to whittle myself down to 225. I wasn’t sure I’d actually get past 10 pounds down, but by April, I was at my goal weight, and I kept going, so that in July I was at 185.
Today, I weigh in at 180, and I’ve run a marathon, won my age group in a 5K, and otherwise turned my life around.
My glow run was a different kind of victory. Three days before the Richmond Marathon in November, I suffered a Grade 1 strain of my right groin, which worsened into at least a Grade 2 over the course of the 26.2 miles.
That was seven weeks ago. It’s just been in the past week that I’ve been able to run without pain, putting in two six-mile training runs.
I really, really, really wanted to run the Y event, if only because I love the idea so much, to start the New Year the right way.
I was heartened to be a part of the group of 50-plus people that ran the Greenway tonight.
The good news, great news, is that the event came off so well that we’re already talking about next year’s New Year’s Revolution.
That means this one was a success, and that’s good for the Y, and I think good for Waynesboro.
– Story by Chris Graham
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