I try to run every day. Or almost every day. I should say that I run almost every week day, depending on if I’m at work or not. I work out at the gym where I work, on one of three treadmills if they’re not already occupied. In the event they are all taken, I am forced to seek alternate machines, like the stairmaster or the elliptical (aka, the evil machine). I’m not much for stationary bikes, and the weight machine I tend to shun unless they’re ones I’ve done before.Today, the treadmills were occupied so I started out on the elliptical. Even though this machine probably gives me a better workout than the treadmill, I don’t like it. It makes my calves hurt something wicked. I would have done a regular stairmaster, but that machine was also occupied. Leaving me with no viable alternative.

As soon as a treadmill was free, I hopped on it and started running. I ran, keeping in beat with the loud dance music I listen to. My feet move in step with the drums and the bass. Ponytail swings from one side to the other, and without fail a small tiny strand of hair always manages to escape the barrette that holds it back from my face, so that I must attempt to brush it aside while running and not fall off the treadmill. I’m amazed that I haven’t fallen off the treadmill yet (though I am probably jinxing myself…tomorrow I’ll have some treadmill incident, I just know it.)

In a minute or two, I feel as though I could run forever. I have so much energy running through me, my heart beating very fast. My legs move as if I am not making them move. Like they were born to run. At times I wonder why I don’t run outside, but then I remember the cold, and the ice, and how I don’t like to exercise in front of too many people. And I like the treadmill. I have control on this machine, or at least I think I do. I tell it just how fast I want to go, or how slow. And it stops when I say so.

I didn’t run for a long time. After college, I didn’t really exercise at all. When I had my daughter I had more time, so I did pilates, which I would still love to do, but there is no time. After that I did nothing. I was getting to a point in my life where I was growing lethargic, in many ways at once. I didn’t exercise, I didn’t write, I didn’t do much of anything. I worked, I cooked, I slept. And I got into a pattern of non-creative activity. I watched too much television, I played video games; I was lazy.

Now, I admit I can be lazy at times, we all can be, but this was getting to the point where I would make excuses to both others and myself for being lazy. I knew I needed to exercise, yet I still didn’t want to find the time to do it. And I knew that once I got home each day, I had no energy or time to fit anything related to working out into my schedule. Which is how I started working out before I got home, in the afternoon. If I was still at work, I couldn’t make the excuse that I didn’t have time. It meant I stayed at work a little bit longer, but in the long run, I feel better about who I am and I have more energy at the end of the day.

And so now I run. I do other things too, but it’s mostly the running that keeps me going back. There’s just something very free and natural to running. It’s not something I have to do, no one tells me I have to run, and it’s not something I do to make money or make me smarter. Since I started working out last summer I’ve gotten the old me back. I feel more like my old self, the girl who did basketball in high school, the track star and volleyball player from middle school. The gymnast from elementary school. I was getting me back as a writer as well. I’ve written more in the past year than I ever have. The ideas I have are all so amazing, and I actually want to write all the time. I’m teeming with stories and characters and plot twists…I get all jumpy just thinking about the exciting things that I’m going to write about.

Running has given me something to write about in my blog, as this entry shows.

I’m not saying that you should get up and start running, though I’m also not saying you shouldn’t. If you think you’ll like it, try it. You may find that it suits you. All I’m saying is that there might be some connection between running and the other aspects of my life. Before I started running I was unbalanced, off kilter, not going in the right direction. I’ve regained direction, I’m moving ahead, step by step, remembering to breath along the way. I don’t worry about what lies ahead. I just focus on the current step, the current movement. And I go with it.

Find your inner runner, and go with whatever makes you feel alive, energetic, spirited even. Move around and get the blood flowing a bit. And the other things in your life may line up as they should as a result. Give yourself some time each day to do something that’s just for you. If you don’t find time for you, you may just lose yourself altogether.

“The answer will not come to you. You need to look for it.”
(random fortune cookie fortune that fell out of my purse this morning)