How To Get Into Exercise (Again)
What you can learn from my days of running/jogging/ walking…
I’ve lived a lifetime in my fifty plus years on earth, and while lupus might have had a deft hand in stopping my running, I must confess I was never going to make it to Boston for the marathon.
So if you’re a runner just starting out, or if you’re running races for kicks you might laugh at my stories.
I’d been a runner in track since 4th grade, and my father recalls my first track meet where the Catholic school made me run the mile. A natural sprinter, I went out too fast and walked the last half of the race.
Dad took it all in stride, as I was known for being musical. But I felt the sting of humiliation all the same. Needless to say I ran the 100 and 200 in high school. I didn’t stop halfway, and I learned to run as if the devil himself was pursuing me.
Before the days of MeToo, we just dealt with creepy coaches, and one way the sprinting coach got us to really push it was by running behind us and goosing (pinching the asses) of the girl in last place. He did this only in practice, but doing 200 repeats felt tough enough without fearing the man bringing up the rear.
200 repeats are running for 200 meters, jogging for 100 meters, running for 200 meters etc. We had to run at an all out sprint for the 200, and we girls would start lagging in our times as the repeats repeated far too long. I never was goosed myself, but some of my teammates weren’t so lucky.
Those early forays into the running world affected me years later when I took up running to deal with a post-baby body. I actually thought after baby my tummy would snap back to its flat pre-baby self. (We didn’t have all those pregnancy books when I had my 1st child, or maybe I didn’t wonder about my body after baby enough.)
We didn’t have the money to join a gym, so my husband took to running to stay in shape, and I realized short of a miracle happening, I would have to join him. I had run to stay in shape in college, so I decided to have three miles as my base and one evening I started out.
My husband watched our daughter, while I left the house in a nondescript pair of shorts, a tee, and some cheap running shoes. I took those three miles at an easy pace, hoping I’d not have to stop and walk, and miraculously I made it.
The best part of running was the feeling of leaving the house behind me, the endless responsibility of being a mom left me, and I felt free. As the blocks between me and the house increased, my tangled life spooled out behind me. I breathed in the fresh evening breeze, while the sun lowered herself down for sleep.
I was hooked, and sometimes when the night descended too rapidly around me in my urban surroundings (as in not-so-safe), I imagined demons chasing me. Seriously. I have a warped mind, or maybe it was the memory of a grown man trying to pinch my ass as I ran that conjured up these images, but it worked. I picked up my pace.
If you’re a runner you might relate. We all have mental images that make us work harder. Wait until I start telling you about the races where I learned humility, though looking back it feels like so many of them ended in that sort of lesson.
My new goal is to walk a 5K. Lupus is whopping my butt these days, and I’m doing infusions now. That’s where I have medicine running into my veins for 90 minutes, and it makes me so very tired. I drive home and fall in bed. It’s causing my body’s immune system to stop working so much, and I caught a cold at Easter.
That’s why I can’t run, but I’m going to walk now. I’ve already started, and I’m lifting weights too. (Dearest husband, don’t laugh too hard. He really lifts weights:)
If a woman who dropped to a walk in her first race can run for five to eight miles in a morning, you can do it too. We just need motivation, and a baby belly that would not tighten up again was mine. I didn’t have the cash to buy new clothes, so I just had to get back to normal.
What’s your story? Are you a runner/jogger? Though I believe anyone jogging is a runner, so shoot me. Do you need motivation? Picture something chasing you, or maybe you’re running toward someone. Maybe you’re leaving all your problems and issues behind you.
Or maybe you just need to hire a personal trainer/creep/shady guy or girl (though I don’t imagine most men would mind a woman trying to pinch their ass, though I could be very wrong) to run behind you. Just hearing their breathing closing in on you might be enough to make those legs of yours move faster.
I hope to see you outdoors soon. We’ll swap running stories.
