Beginnings

You step out the door into the night air. Your breath billows clouds from your mouth. The air is so dry and crisp you can actually feel it as it fills your lungs. You look around at your neighborhood and all are asleep. The neighborhood that used to glimmer with lights is now dark and cold. The drips from the ice-cycles that fell in the sun have frozen again, advancing the length of the crystal scepter. You take a deep breath and produce a dense fog, running through it as it dissipates into the air. This will be the start of your day. It might as well be the start of your life. This run is the only thing going on in your mind. All of the stress is gone. There is only you and the air you suck in and blow out as the blood pumps faster and faster to your organs. The heat inside will become heat outside soon as you wince in the cold air.

The demons of yesterday are defeated with every mile. There is no better way to gain control over what happens in your life than sweating and panting as the rest are comfortable on their couches and beds. Beating your body into submission is the ultimate meditation. You fight and you win and you breathe. You learn the most efficient way to breathe and move and push yourself past the things you never thought you could do. This has become my addiction.

I started running at the beckoning of my wife who had been running for a year. She told me she wanted to have a hobby other than television in common with me. She had signed up for the St. Patrick's Day Corktown 2011 5K and asked me to run too. I told her no way. Running is terrible and I would stick to weight lifting and cross-training. As the date closed in, I looked at the tech shirt and said, "Cool shirt, maybe I'll run it." I ran 1.5 miles on the treadmill that day and got off in boredom, assuming that if I can run 1.5, I can run 3.1. So that was that. My wife rolled her eyes at me because I have always been cocky and this is her normal response to that. I ran the 5K without any real incident. I limped the last half mile or so do to a calf cramp, but ended up crossing the finish line in 33:19.

I thought the run sucked so I decided not to run again. So I didn't until one day out of boredom in my workout routine I stepped onto the treadmill during a time that my anxiety problem was bad. I started running and things started to feel different. My sweat became a release. I turned the mill up and ran faster and realized that something in me was changing.

Running is tailor made to my disposition. I am terribly competitive if you challenge me and never really shook off that grundge 90's teenage angst. Running gave me a constant competitor...myself. If I win or lose, it will be my victory or my defeat. I can own it and blame no one.

I needed a channel to put my bad things. This was the perfect place to leave my anger...underfoot in the miles beneath me. I've come a long way through injuries and disappointment and success. Running is now more who I am than what I do.




Sing.
Migrate.