So, it’s been about two weeks since Julie and I started running. Our regularity isn’t perfect, but it isn’t bad. We’re on track to have averaged four times per week for three weeks before going on vacation next week.
It’s mostly been drudgery – although I have loved the way my body and mind have felt, post-run – until last night. Last night, like every single other time I’ve run in my life, I didn’t want to fucking run. I went anyway because we promised one another we’d give it three weeks before deciding whether or not to swear off running (and maybe even exercise in general) forever.
It started off terrible. I was sore from gardening (shut up) and tired from my sedentary workday at the computer and had a headful of better ideas for how I could spend those 20 minutes anyway. I could barely lift my feet off the ground, much less call what I was doing, “running,” but I kept pushing through, even after those grueling initial ten seconds. By the end of the first lap, I hadn’t fallen over stiff and dead, so I not-quite-resolved-but-defaulted to keep going.
End of the second lap, I noticed something odd happening: Julie and I were talking. Well, Julie was talking, but I was responding. I’ve never understood people who can talk and run. Talking and running are 100% mutually exclusive activities for me. When I’m running, using my mouth and/or lungs for anything more than survival risks, well, survival, so the only sounds that usually come from me when I run are labored breathing and wheezing. Not yesterday. Progress!
Next thing I knew, we were midway through the fourth lap, still kinda chatty, and the most startling thought occurred to me: I could keep going. Huh? Every other run so far, I’ve been ready to surrender my life to Lucifer by the time I hit that final 200 yards of my one-mile run. But last night, as if I was being called to deliver on my end of a deal with the devil, I was entertaining thoughts of going for a few more laps. Maybe I’ll try for two miles tonight, I thought. Seriously disturbing stuff.
Don’t worry, we slowed to a walk after our mile, walked a half mile to cool down (which, harrowingly enough, took only half as long for me last night as it had on previous runs), and went home to eat and get the kids to sleep. But for the first time in decades, I didn’t hate the actual running. It didn’t kick my ass. As in, time to bump up my distance a little. It was an event. A real thing. There should be a word for these kinds of markers in life.
“Milestone,” maybe?
Nah, too literal.