Ugly Running

After about a week and a half after I downloaded the app onto my phone, I finally worked up the gumption to start C25K, a running app designed for lazy non-runners.

Also, it should be known that by "gumption" I mean "the leering guilt which came through devouring an entire box of macaroni and cheese by myself in one sitting...again".

I am not a runner.

Tried Track for a couple months in high school, made it two months under the regime of the interim coach and one day of the actual team.
My sophomore roommate Lauren got me to run for the same two months 5 years later. We ran every single morning. Mile and a half, ending with the 100 stairs on campus. It was miserable.

I've been four years clean from running, and thank goodness. That stuff is terrible, and I get just the worst shin splints.

And yet.

C25K.

Why?

You guessed it.
Office peer pressure.

We're going to a conference for nationwide admissions folk and guidance counselors at the end of next month and, for some ungodly reason, there is a "fun" 5K involved.

Basically, I was tricked into believing that we were all going to do it.
We're not.
But I have been promised a tank top.

So there I went to the health complex to get my run on on the track above the intramural gym. Because it's beautiful outside, nobody else besides me (the Allergic Wonder) was there.

5 minutes of warm up walk, followed by variations of a minute of running to a minute and a half of walking for 20 minutes, then 5 more minutes of walking.

It was all good and fun (ish) until I hear thumping behind me, see a runner (CAME OUT OF NOWHERE I TELL YOU), and scream. Like a little girl. That poor guy. He finished half a lap and escaped out a side door not to return.

The idea of running has always appealed to me. I have visions of running through fields, down country roads, or down really really long hallways in the basement of Pentecostal churches after hours, with my hair streaming out behind me and my 3 mile legs taking me so far so fast.

Reality? About 15-20 seconds of glory before I'm panting and feeling the start of shin splints.
I've got no endurance. Or patience to learn endurance.

Many things have come easily to me learning wise.
If someone makes me feel stupid or less than, I will kick their expectations right off the table. Nothing can sidetrack me from my goal.

It takes that challenge, though, to make me change, to grow, to...try.
I've tried tricking myself into different challenges, like a weird self-antagonism, but it just doesn't stick. I need that outside antagonist, just one person that I've got to prove wrong.

That's how I passed Honors Algebra 2 and AP European History, why I was able to hold to my determination against slipping back into anorexia, how I managed to complete my Master's degree.
I still know the triggers from each. And there are more.

There have been other things I have vaguely wanted to accomplish, but the hard-nosed drive just isn't there.

I suppose I've always seen it as one or the other: either I'm so determined I'm scary or so apathetic others are scared for me. The gentle incline of appropriated endurance is not something I've endured long enough to see the fruits of. I try once, get irritated with my failure, and quit.

That brings me back to running.
I'm going to finish the 8 weeks this dumb app makes me do, and I will do it on its terms, not mine.
Honestly, I don't really care if I become a passable runner or not. It's more that this is a practice in a form of discipline that no one else would even know about if I didn't tell them.

So many areas of my life I wish were different. At the same time, I only think that because I keep focusing on all the large battles lost when I'm not even paying attention to the small battles.

Of course I can't read a 300 page book when I can't read a 300 word article on TheDailyBeast.
Of course I can't turn my phone off for a full day when I can't turn it off for half an hour.
Of course I can't write a new book when I can't write a letter back to Leslie.

Small, consistent practices of discipline. The gentle incline of appropriated endurance.
That's what I'm lacking; that's what I want.