American Brat

Week 4 of training already! I gave the treadmill the four miles that Hal Higdon suggests. I was not into it. At all. I had a million excuses and rational reasons to cut the run short.

I am a morning person. I have been running at 7pm or later most of the time. I was totally prepared to go to the gym immediately after work (by 4:30pm) but had some creative justification to go home for awhile instead. Incidentally, I started my run sometime around 7 tonight.

I had nothing for this run. Four miles isn't forever, but it can feel like it if you just want to be done. My mind was all out of whack. I needed to be somewhere else, but as I have said before, a commitment to myself has to be as high a priority as a commitment I make to anyone else. So I know I'm going to put one foot in front of the other. Even when it sucks. Even when I don't want to and I could put this off and do it tomorrow instead. (Hal Higdon says it's ok to do that, for the record.)

So I'm at the gym and I'm on the treadmill. And it's moving under me and I am managing to keep myself there at a reasonable speed but I keep searching for good reasons to get off the thing. My heart rate will not regulate itself. My legs are tired and the visual stimuli (I go to a Retro Fitness- same color scheme as McfreakinDonalds) was particularly overwhelming. I'm not even ten minutes into the run when I decide that I'm going to stop at three miles. Each step is treacherous, but I am realizing that if I want to get through this run without feeling tortured every during single second, I've got to find a way to get my mind off of how treacherous it is. So I have to dig a little deep. I start thinking of what got me here in the first place. What gave me the privilege to choose to run a marathon. I drive here to run because it's too cold outside to run. I pay a monthly fee to use the equipment here. I am fortunate. I live in a country where for many, the greatest burdens are that they are allowed too much. We take too much. We have debt because creditors allow us to purchase more than we can afford. Whether it's a house or a car or clothes or shoes or jewelry, we are burdened by our debt. We were given more than we deserved, and now we're upset about it. The same goes for food. We have to expend energy on machines like treadmills and stationary bikes and weight lifting machines because we have too much food. We stuff our faces, claim we need food and derive joy from it, and now we're upset about it because our health is at risk or we can't move and don't look the way we think we are supposed to. And I think about who lived before me. My mother lived in a third world country and lacked basic necessities. My grandparents went hungry regularly and struggled to feed their children and never once felt the burden of debt as a result of buying one too many cute pairs of shoes. I'm such an American baby brat, moving on my treadmill, burdened by own overindulgence.

And why am I here? Oh that's right, I have a lofty goal. One that I chose on my own. One that I committed to in order to challenge myself. Am I seriously going to balk at a four mile run because it's HARD? What brought me here? Hunger? Struggle? Strife and heartache? Am I about to step off just because what I chose to do is difficult???? Freakin' American brat...