When you have no one, no one can hurt you

I bought some new running shoes yesterday. A worthwhile investment, despite being light in the wallet. I'd been switching between two old, worn, and beaten pairs for a couple of years and it was time for a change. I've been running more frequently and greater distances; a new pair of shoes was in order. I deserved it.

So, I purchased a pair of Sauconeys after work, came home, laced up, and ventured out in the rain which had been been coming down steadily, almost angrily, and tested the bad boys out. The result? I think I made a good choice; t'was like running on pillows. I realized as I ran that I should have gotten new shoes a while ago. I was able to run faster and longer; I could cut on a dime; I felt reborn.

I started running about four years ago. Though I'd always been more or less athletic, running was never appealing to me. Partly because I was a smoker. There was no way I could do both. Smoking usually came out on top until I finally quit. I was smoke free for a year when it dawned on me that I had gone a long time without exercise. I was living with Spira at the time. One night, she decided to try running, something she hadn't engaged in before. She didn't go far, maybe a couple of circuits around the block, but it was something. More than I was doing. I'll never forget coming out of the shower and hearing her knocking on the front door. She'd forgotten her key. I opened the door in my towel. Spira was breathing heavy and fatigued, but she was smiling with pride. She'd made a step, or several as it were, in the right direction, toward a healthier lifestyle. In my towel, I felt like a wet piece of pastry that was teetering too close to a gluttonous lifestyle.

My first stab at running was brief, but consequential. It was a couple of months later and I'd been taking long walks fairly regularly. Every so often when I'd see a runner pass by, I'd get the itch to run, but it wouldn't go beyond that. At the time, I had difficulty seeing myself becoming a runner. One day, though, I was on the bike path and I said "fuck it" and broke into a jog. I made it about a hundred feet before I needed to stop. Like Spira with her first attempt at running, I was out of breath and lethargic, but I was smiling. I had started something. Thought put into action. I would go at my own pace, but I had a good feeling I'd stick with it.

For a few weeks after, I'd walk, jog a little, and walk some more. Mostly walking. I was slowly developing stamina and my legs needed to adjust to the new activity and its demands. There were times my legs hurt so bad, I could barely walk, never mind run. I ended up using the track at Tufts. With a softer surface, I hoped the pain would decrease.

I worked through it gingerly. Even at the track, I was in a lot of pain. Mostly in my knees. I wondered if I was going to have to give up running. I'd made it that far, though, and didn't want to stop. I don't recall when it happened, but I finally experienced my first pain free run at the track. I was ecstatic. I hoped it wasn't a fluke. It wasn't. After that, I no longer experienced any pain when I ran.

I eventually abandoned the track because it was boring and I was concerned I'd lose interest and quit running. I hit the streets again in an effort to shake things up. My routines were still a combination of walking and running, but now it was mostly the latter. The distances were never much more than a couple of miles, but it was something.

Over time, it dawned on me that, despite running every other day on a regular basis, I wasn't seeing much of a difference in the way I looked. I had operated under the assumption that if I ran between one and two miles every other day, I could eat as much as I wanted to. Nope. Mind you, I was eating a pretty healthy diet overall, it was just that my portions were pretty large and, oh yeah, I was eating a big mug of ice cream and crackers or chips, on a daily basis. I needed to change some things, to be sure.

It's a process, with a lot of fine tuning. Starting this spring, I changed things up and decided to shoot for an optimal healthy lifestyle, better than I've ever known. Rather than practice yoga every so often, I started doing it every other day between runs. I altered my diet; I eat better and less. It could be argued that I'm in the best shape of my life. I couldn't have managed the run I went on yesterday in my twenties. Still, there's more I can fine tune, more adjustments I can make. What did Tony Robbins call it? CANI: Constant And Never ending Improvement. Yeah, that's the stuff.

We can talk our way out of anything. We make excuses why we can't or shouldn't do something. Fear holds us back, renders us immobile. Our myths, our legends, are in place to guide us through fear and keep us moving with the flow in the of life. What happens to a shark that stops swimming? Life is change and if we're not flexible, not mobile, we wither and die. So much of life is open to interpretation; what I just described isn't really. It's a basic truth, a universal law. It's why I run in the rain and snow, the sweltering heat, and the chill of winter. Not because I'm some kind of tough guy, an iron man,but because I'm declaring to myself and the universe that I believe in what I'm doing, that I'm willing to experience discomfort in order to keep doing it.

There's much in my life that fear has a hold on. I know this, I see it. Some of it I'll work through, some perhaps I won't. I know too well what it feels like to be frozen in place. I've watched so many others advance while I struggled in the lower depths. Running, yoga, quitting smoking, eating better - all of this is a big FUCK YOU to fear. I'm proud of myself for this. It illustrates that I'm capable of challenging myself, overcoming obstacles, and sticking with something. For all I know, I'll stop it all and in a few months become a full blown couch potato, stuffing my face in gluttonous fury. I can't worry about that. I can only deal with what's in front of me.

And so can you.