Last night I crawled into bed at 9:00 with muscles aching, it felt good.
I’d been listening to NPR on the way home and was getting seriously frazzled about the whole 700 billion thing and the economy. I even started to talk about it as we headed out the door on our run.
Thoughts of anything soon evaporated as we picked up the pace.
I don’t want any of you reading this to think I’m some sort of super in shape athlete who one day just decided to pick up a new sport. I’m a six foot tall 245 pound nice guy with a belly. Running currently sucks.
Anyway, everything that had concerned me through the day was erased by the rhythmic pounding of my feet. I would see Cate a few paces ahead and look over her shoulder to the next intersection. We’d get closer and my pace would drop a little in hopes that it would be like last time. She just pushed on, crossed the street and kept running.
Hmm, I can handle one more block. Reach for the door knob, hand to the back pocket, loose shoulders, don’t bounce.
Thankfully, the next block we slowed to a brisk walk. I wondered if we were going to have an extra bit of walking. Nope.
We continued on the same route we did yesterday only I think we ran closer to 75% of the time. There were a couple stints where Cate got pretty far ahead but I kept running until I caught up.
It wasn’t fun while it was happening and I probably had the sour look of pain and suffering on my face the whole time but when we got back I felt good.
I had willed my body to do something it wasn’t accustomed to and it reluctantly obeyed. The feeling of personal victory also took care of my fears about the economy.
Small triumphs in any form set your brain up to expect a win instead of settling for defeat.
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As someone who’s just recently started to force herself to fit exercise into her daily routine – I have to say that this post is very inspiring. Thanks for visiting and commenting on my blog; I will certainly come back and visit as I’m sure I’ll need more inspiration in coming days.
Chin up! You can do it!
I started running a few weeks back. I have been mostly regular so far
I totally agree that the feeling of personal victory is great after I have willed myself to stretch the limits.