Tonight I finally got angry. I railed against my impossible seeming and physically demanding schedule of the next week, the makers of Tecate beer, and swim suit manufacturers who believe that “plus size” women don’t actually swim and instead merely lounge about at the beach favoring garish floral ensembles. I fumed about the injustice of cheese having oh-so-many more calories than celery sticks. I glowered at the scale and its unchanging numbers.
I put on my darkest running clothes and became incensed that the laundry had not done itself and my gray running shirt was to disgusting to contemplate putting next to my skin. I would have rather just gone without, counting on my compression bra to suffice, but I need to lose the equivalent weight of a large bag of dog food before that’s happening. And then I realized what I was actually doing. All that lashing out? That was keeping me from focusing on where the true problem lay- with me.
When I started this fitness quest to recover the person I lost beneath the fast food and lethargy I made some pretty radical but entirely sustainable changes. Pairing a gym workout with a “run” was not uncommon, in fact, twice a week it was my norm. My diet improved, the weight started coming off. My body shape started changing. I got stronger. Then I became more complacent.
My eating habits backslid. The number and intensity of gym workouts decreased. Even my running stagnated. Happy hour turned into happy evenings- and occurred far too frequently. My choice of company became questionable. Without recognizing it as it happened, the slovenly me that sneaks into Walmart in the middle of the night for the value sized sugar sweetened cereal and larger size of pants was back and hanging out on the sofa with a big bowl of Lucky Charms.
The anger I felt before hit a new level- fury as I realized I am the only maker of my problems, and the only solution. I became Alecto, Greek Fury of constant anger. There was no visible moon and I intentionally chose the darkest section of trail available to me. I did not merely walk my five minute warm up, I stalked down the road, seething bitterness and sweat from every pore. It was not a far stretch to imagine serpentine hair and blood dripping from my eyes. Then I started to run.
And I ran. I didn’t jog. I didn’t shuffle. I ran. And I did it for a longer distance and time than I’ve managed so far. I gulped for air which seemed to be a commodity unavailable to me. My breath came in gasps. With every right foot fall I felt as if I were being kicked in the shin, every left step was the uncomfortable pop and hesitation in my knee. I slowed to a walk believing I would never again catch my breath. But I did, after about two minutes. The next eighteen minutes were comprised of walk/run drills and knee lifts that even my training program refers to as “hilarious looking.” I pushed through the darkness, both literal and figurative until I found myself further down the greenway than I had gone before.
By the time I got to the 15 minute “free form run” (read: mostly walked segment) that followed air that felt like it was coming from a blast furnace when I started felt cool- to the point it actually concerned me until I remembered the whole sweating thing is the bodies cooling mechanism.
I ran tonight with more heart, soul, guts, speed, and yes, anger than I have since I started. As long as I don’t allow it to become caustic I believe I will be well served by carrying that Fury with me. She is forging me into someone stronger, and into the self I hope to regain.
Late Night Running 