Saturday, January 08, 2011

Why I Run.

Ok. So allow me to get a bit deep here.

I hate to run. I completely, DREAD it at times. I hate squeezing into sports bra’s, putting on my cold heart rate monitor an watch. I hate to sweat. Blisters?grrr. Friction sucks. I get it. Really.

SO Why do I run?

I do NOTHING extra special, to make running easier for me than it would be for you. It simply makes me feel good, afterwards. Look better, and gives me something ‘real’ to complain about.

It is my cloudy day to let me see the sunshine better. My rainbow to my pot-o-gold. We need crap, so the rest is just, well, better!

Running allows me to get my mind and health straight. I can not begin to tell you how inter woven those two are. If you believe you are sick, or unfit. You WILL be unhealthy. Your mind is amazing. It can beat you up or it can lift you up.

And now the many reasons… why I should NOT run…

1. I have cankles. And thick legs. They are heavy. They remind me they are there with every step I take. They don’t like to move. It takes mind over matter for me to keep going for hours at a time. It sucks.

2. I jiggle. It is very much not pretty. I pity the person driving down the street having to watch me run. I hope that they are looking at the action of my ENTIRE body and not just various parts.

3. I turn bright red. Yes, not just blushing, but more like ‘quick grab your marshmallows and lets make a s’more red. Which brings me to reason number 4.

4. Woah,and the heat? Gives new meaning to the expression ‘hot mama’… let me tell you. I can not even shower for at least 30 minutes later, or else I am still sweating! Not to mention, natures cruel fate of ‘girls’ having to wear things like lotion and make-up to drip down your face or in your eyes. (D’oh, that is soooo annoying!)

5. It’s boring. If you can’t stand to listen to yourself, forget it. Why even try running. You will talk yourself out of it, EASILY. I read an article recently where the author talks about her running partners. She had 3. The first was fat, smelly and a complainer. The second was encouraging, upbeat and happy. As I read I didn’t understand WHY on earth she would keep such a crappy running partner… until she admitted it was herself.

(I LOVE the movie, Despicable Me, if you didn’t see it forget it) Ok, are you still with me?

It was the first partner on the run, asking herself ‘Why are we doing this again?’ or ‘Did you really have to eat that last night?”. We live in an age where we can not get a gallon of milk with out being bomb barded with 18 different ways ‘entertainment’. Flashing signs, news, music or store carts! Heck even the bathroom stalls have us entertained these days. TV is everywhere, on every device. Even with my ipod, heart rate monitor/mileage tracker and TV on the treadmills I STILL get bored at times. We are just simply used to be ‘zoned out’ all the time.

6. It takes a long time…. Ok. So 30 minutes to run? No. If weather is ok, yay! Maybe 1 hour and 30 minutes. But if I have to drive to the gym, put my clothes in the locker, pee, workout, ‘clean off the machine’, go back to the locker, drive home, shower… easily 2 hrs. That doesn’t include any weight workouts~

Now with all these reasons NOT TO RUN why do I still do it?

Accomplishment. I am able to give my kids a ‘hero’. It may be only for a moment… but they will be able to touch a real live person they can look up to.

Acceptance. Funny how some people treat you ‘before’ endurance and ‘after’ endurance. Like you did something awesome. So wrong they are.

To Believe. To prove to those voices in my head, during the run, that I can and WILL do it.

Excitement. My ‘events’ truly give me something to work towards to look forward to.

Wonder. I am continually learning how amazing our bodies are. We can go SO FAR with so little nourishment. (I could go on and on with that one)

Joy. Knowing that my body needs this exercise and craves it. I love going to the Doctor and after they listen to my heart ask ‘Do you run?” without me telling them!! It happens all the time! I love it.

For me, the reward is not so much in the small amount of time I put into the effort itself… but in the ever after.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like this... I get beet red too whenever I excersize, be that working out in the yard, riding bike, or whatever. I have had people tell me to slow down or rest just because of that. Good to know I am not alone in hating to sweat... One thing though, forget about putting on make up before you work out. It is not worth it. I hardly ever wear the stuff (mostly because of laziness) unless it is a special occasion. It really is not a requirement. jmzw

Sara said...

Hi: I just realized that my feed reader has not been working since June, and you must have changed something on you blog, because now I have 14 posts from July until January! I just read them in a massive marathon session, and I'm sorry I missed them when you actually wrote them!

I also turn really red when I exercise; perhaps it's genetic. When I last ran in Verona, there was a guy who was honking and pointing at me from his car. Talk about embarrassing.

Sara said...

One other thing...remember how I went running with you that one time when you came to visit me, and I kept saying "Okay, we'll run to the stop sign and then we'll walk a little bit", just throttling our run so you could get through it?

Well, I think that's me now. I can't run too long, 1 mile on, walk a bit, 1 mile on again. I think I could work up a bit more if the weather would just cooperate, but I'm truly inspired by you!

Duners2 said...

Lol. JMZW, I don't normally wear make up, I just stop after work to run sometimes, and forget to wash it off before I run.

Sara, don't worry about it! But,Thank you!
:)