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.

An Introduction

"I've been running a lot for the past 6 months. I think I can't stay away from the feeling of balance and gratitude I get when I have to fight, and win.

Today it was raining freezing water onto the earth by my house. I got home from work dreading the feeling of ice cold water dripping down the middle of my back, paralyzing me with that awful bone chill. I put on my shoes and my gamer wife strapped on hers too, even when she was sick today. We set off for 5 miles in this mess. During my first quarter mile I stepped in my first huge puddle and filled my shoes with cold gelatinous fluid hell bent on wrapping it's tentacles around each individual toe and strangling it to death. I then repeated the puddle incident over and over for the next 48 minutes. When I got home, I got in the shower filled with endorphins from my victory over the elements and my own personal discomfort. As I was feeling the stabbing pain of my sensation coming back into my toes as the hot water thawed them, I had a thought. Very rare thought. It is when the conditions are uncomfortable that you really learn to fight. When you are wanting out and fight to the death you build perseverance. This is mental training. These are the times that you really get the good stuff. You may hate it at the time, but when it's over and you are still standing, you realize that there isn't much that can stop you. 

The wise runner will lace them up in 6 inches of snow, icy sidewalks and trails, freezing rain, staggering wind, the dead of night, the mist of the morning, in anger and sadness, when ill, when exhausted from a horrendous day at work, when your legs hurt, and especially when you want to give up. These are the very moments that train you to push on both to the next mile and in your life."

The above was a post I wrote a couple of months ago before the "Polar Tarantula" or whatever descended from Santa's home to mine. Almost two solid months of the worst running conditions possible. Snow, ice, -30 Degrees, wind, snow, -40 degrees. I hate running indoors. I didn't get addicted to running by running indoors. I want to see the world, even if it is the same stretch of world many times a week. I get to be chased by dogs and slip and fall dodging a car. I get to step in cold puddles and battle my bowels with only trees in sight. 

This blog will speak about my own personal experience with running and with life. I'll post running logs, race journals, and minor and major victories and defeats on my way to running my first full marathon next October. 

If you have been reading my insearchofwhales.com blogs, I will be ending these the same way as I end those; with the words "Sing." "Migrate." For those new to my blogs, these words are referencing studies that have shown that whales in captivity do not sing as they do when in the wild. When in the wild, whales sing to find each other and migrate to find one another. In captivity, there is no one to find and no where to go. This has inspired my life because I believe we are nothing without each other and need each other desperately for happiness. So I sing and I migrate, in search of the rest of you. 

Sing.
Migrate.