By HPRS Staff Columnist Holly Rapp

This is the road outside my front door. If you go to the end, turn around, and go back to my house, you will cover half of a mile.

Half a mile. A distance that must sound like nothing to most of you; an inconsequential measure you probably don’t even acknowledge in your daily runs. My former self would have felt the same way.

But it’s been over a year since I’ve been able to run, and half a mile now appears quite differently to me.

I am so far from the runner I used to be that it’s hard to explain. I spent the last eighteen months sick and unable to walk, let alone even imagine running. My legs have atrophied and don’t look like my own. I’ve lost over thirty pounds, leaving me under 100 pounds at 5’7.” Physically, I don’t look or feel anything like myself.

Somewhere inside, however, I know that same runner is still there, waiting patiently to return. And I’m so grateful to be at the point where I can start to think about the long path to running again. It doesn’t look like much, but there it is: a half mile stretching in front of me, beautiful and tree-lined, surrounded by gorgeous woods and mountain views. A half mile to becoming a runner again.

So here’s the start, as slow and embarrassingly small as it may be. I want to walk this entire route, no matter how long it may take. And then I’ll find a one-mile route, then two, and someday three. Eventually those walks will include a few steps of running. Though it might seem impossibly far at the moment, I believe those one- and two-mile walks will stretch and grow until my dreams of a hundred-mile race become real. (I’m still coming for you, Silverheels). I know that sounds insanely unrealistic, but I truly believe I can make it happen, no matter how far off it may appear from here.

I have, after all, already made tiny steps of progress to get me to this point. First being able to get out of bed and go outside, and then being able to walk to the end of my driveway (pictured above) and back. It felt like a real accomplishment to make it the entire way, though I know that sounds ridiculous.

Every day I try, and sometimes I make it a few feet farther. I don’t make progress every time, and it’s definitely not a clear trajectory forward, but I’m not letting that stop me. I’m taking literal small steps to make myself a runner again, and I’m grateful for every single one.

I’ve been too embarrassed to talk about these infinitesimal, microscopic goals. Who cares if I can walk to the end of a driveway or a road? Most people do it without thinking. Who has to set a goal for something so tiny, so meaningless to most?

But this is where I’m at, the place I currently inhabit, and I’ll never get past it if I don’t meet these first small goals.

So here’s to the little things, the small things we don’t often acknowledge. There’s no path to larger accomplishments without first getting through these, so maybe they deserve more respect than we think.

Here’s to trying and doing your very best where you’re at right now, no matter how little it may feel. Here’s to owning your limitations while working to break through them to achieve more.

Here’s to celebrating the small things, because we can’t get to anything greater without working our way through them.

It’s going to be a long run, but I’m ready.