The Other Woman
She was familiar, easily available, and very desirable. I ran to her; no, not at first. At first I walked to her, then I walked faster, then I ran slowly and for short bursts. One day I ran the whole 30 minutes to her house. Today, I run to her, around her, and from her. She has given me great comfort; she has listened when nobody else would (and when I didn’t care to tell anyone else); she has held me close, and she gave me love before I gave her anything. I love her, and cannot ever imagine a day without her. This passion with her, this love, it is beautiful, it is healing, it is all I ever want or need.
My mistress is called by many names, but today most of us call her Running. I am passionate about Running like I have been passionate about few things in my life. Today I read, watch videos, and generally obsess about all things Running. I think about Running when I’m not running; I dream about Running. I am compelled to do things I would have never have done before to become a better runner. I tolerate embrace cross-training; I do speed work on a treadmill; I talk to people I don’t know; I run with people I don’t know, sometimes whole groups of people. As a introvert recluse, this is a big deal. I constantly go out of my comfort zone all in the name of Running. I want more…passion.
Why should I be a one passion man?
Today it occurred to me that I started out running so easily, with so little expectation, and today my life nearly revolves around running – so why can’t I grow new passions by first making them habits?
This year I have resolved to learn to write code; I don’t know that I’ll be good at it and I’m not even sure it will enrich my life that much, but I know that I want to try it. When I started running, my goal was to run a total of 10 minutes for every 30 minute exercise session. So I would run 1 minute, and walk 2 minutes, and when I kept this up for 30 minutes, I would have met my goal. Before that, I walked around the neighborhood for 30 minutes. Then I walked faster. Then one day I literally thought, “I bet I can run.”
…and I haven’t stopped since. So how can I apply the lessons from my love affair with running to a new goal?
Scheduling Passion
I have carved out two 30 minute sessions every week in my calendar to learn how to code. What I really want to do is buckle down and tackle it 2 hours a day until I’m really good – but that’s not my style. This week I had to alter my schedule to make the sessions 1 hour long because 30 minutes was just enough time to find a problem I couldn’t solve. I’ll revisit this schedule again next week.
Two years ago I wasn’t a runner, I wasn’t into fitness, and I wasn’t even so fit. Today I can’t write a simple program.
Love it! I agree completely. Running is more than…running.
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Thanks for reading! Running is a great outlet to exercise your body, mind, and spirit.
First off, this blog post title totally sucked me in and in the first paragraph I was reading on the edge of my seat, you are a great writer and I loved this post! You are so right about running and only other runners can totally understand this obsession!
Thank you for the compliment, I really appreciate it! It's easy for me to write about things I love to do!