I run for enjoyment. Well, that’s not the whole truth. It’s a specific type of enjoyment involving confidence, like when I notice I’m prepared for work or when I wear my favorite shirt. It’s a type of enjoyment that influences a unity with what I expect from myself and what I’m prepared to achieve.
It becomes more satisfying with each stride, the challenge of a hill or sucking in the gut for the passer-by-ers. Then I lose myself further on as the run starts putting more miles onto my mind than my feet. Running: it makes me feel like I’m figuratively moving forward, not just literally.
Currently, I pass up my morning runs more than I care to admit, and I sleep in more on weekends than ever before. Running is an after-thought, though I still get some miles in. How did this happen?
O.k., I admit it: I haven’t always been so enthusiastic about my running. As a freshman at Northern Virginia Community College, I even went as far as to use running as masochism. I ran run daily out of duty and recognized that I was in college now, no longer a kid, and my runs needed to reflect a militaristic approach.
Those runs were usually 10-milers on the same lake trail everyday with a monotonous change in pace and ease. It was enjoyable, but again, that’s not the whole truth.
I wanted to be thin; I wanted to be confident and ahead of my problems. I was chubby, around 200 lbs with a waxing and waning expectation of 192-198 lbs when I actually tried to lose weight. This translated into some high-strung frustration and some self-image issues which I ignored under the pretense that I had the potential to improve, just not the time.
Yea, I was an idiot. But I was getting into running and that felt good. However, this all changed October 28th. It was going to be my first marathon, and it was inconceivable to think I would cross the finish-line.
Spoiler Alert: I finished the marathon. But I finished strong, really strong in fact—3 hours and 44 minutes. Had the chubby freshman peaked?
I felt good about my time, but I was scared to commit myself further to something I thought I had beaten.
“Why run 5 miles when I can run 26.2?” It was something to fall back on when I knew I had lost my edge, and so my body began weakening.. I neglected my smaller runs and I let other things fall behind as well.
“Why go to class today when I can do the work this weekend?” And so my grades started to suffer.
“Why clean my room when I can do it tomorrow?” And so I became lazy.
Soon enough, I looked at myself and saw that I was not who I thought I was. I was using running as a justification to return to my old habits and I was unable to fully invest myself into anything.
That painful realization is why I continue running, but at a lesser intensity. Exercise can’t be all about one thing or it is just another excuse to live unsatisfactorily. Get the impulsivity out of running and be honest with yourself. What can you run?
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