For
most of my life, I’ve viewed exercise as a means to an end. Whether training
for or playing a sport, walking to a specified destination, or starting a workout
program to lose weight or get in better shape, the exercise was always
secondary to some other goal; and so my motivation to exercise has waxed or
waned depending upon the importance of the goal balanced against other
pressures in my life.
The
exercise program I had been following when we were living in Missouri fell
completely by the wayside in the upheaval of the move, and for the first few months
that we were living here. Between walking Miss B to and from school, and doing various
errands on foot, I was walking 3-4 mi (6-8 km) most days anyway, often carrying
bags of stuff, and I figured that was plenty of exercise. But then, during the October
school holidays, sometime in the middle of a week of no-break single parenting and
work frustration, I thought: something’s missing. I need something that I’m not
getting. And I resolved that, when school started up again and I got some
untethered adult time, I was going to try to get back to some kind of dedicated
exercise routine.
I
decided to focus on running, mainly because the last time I lived in Canberra, I
started a walk-to-run program that I remembered
enjoying and sticking with for a long time, well into my return to the US. Running
also doesn’t require much investment in equipment or infrastructure; all you really
need is a decent pair of running shoes (although something that plays music to
run by is nice too), and the willingness to spend some time using them.
So
I started – or, really, re-started – the walk-to-run routine about six weeks
ago. But this time is different, because this time it isn’t a means to an end. That's because
I quickly realized that what I had been missing was the way strenuous,
dedicated exercise, but especially running, makes me feel. Not physically so
much, although that’s good too; no, it’s what it does emotionally: that
endorphin rush that makes me feel, for a little while at least, like I can do
anything. It doesn’t matter that I may sound like an asthmatic sheep to passing
pedestrians, or that an energetic preschooler could probably lap me; when I’m
running, I’m invincible, at least for a few minutes, and that’s a feeling I hadn't even realized I was hooked on, and need on an ongoing basis.
Earlier
today, in a rambling phone conversation covering many topics, I shared all these
thoughts with my sister M, a runner of 27 years’ standing.
“Congratulations,”
she replied. “You’ve crossed over.”
Time
will tell. But for someone who used to joke that she only ran at gunpoint, it’s
not a bad start.
0 comments:
Post a Comment