Why Even an Awful Run is a Good Run

Yesterday marked the first day of my two week vacation from work. A little 'holiday from reason', as Terry Pratchett might say through his characters. It's strange for me to take more than a week at a time, because I suffer from the sincere belief that my office will fall apart without me. Or they'll find all the crap I've been putting off.

I have Plans for all this free time I've got: yoga; running; biking (and purchasing said bicycle on Sunday); chilling out; doing nothing in particular. But this morning, I had a plan to run. A plan that seemed like a really damn good idea... at first...

Waking up a mere hour before we were scheduled to go out, I wavered between 'go' and 'no go' but eventually told myself 'this is it. All systems go'. Lurching to my feet, I dressed and set the coffee so it would be ready when I got home. I started my watch just outside to catch the satellite connection and heard a pair of cats hissing and snarling. Beep beep; it was time to start running.

Except I couldn't run for more than two minutes without my lower body saying, "This sucks beyond all reasoning." It was like my lower body was trying to run in water, while my brain was confused: we had just done this a week ago, right? We loved that run. Why didn't we love this one as much? My knees weren't complaining or anything; my legs just did not want to have anything to do with this.

Through 3.5 grueling kilometers of fighting my lower half, I walked and ran, slowly realizing that my body was not interested in doing more than that. Even if I distracted myself with planning or thinking random thoughts, my body would just slow to a walk if it felt like it.

I had hoped it would be cool in the morning, but it was already at least 24C. First thing in the morning, before food or even coffee, 24C is ridiculous. I also hadn't remembered the numerous forest fires that were leaching their hazardous breathing conditions into my fair city. To be fair, 9:30 or so was probably the best time to go because it just got steadily worse throughout the day.

(borrowed from Google and CBC.ca)

In the midst of frustration, I realized a few things:

• I lack mental discipline.
• I am out of shape.
• Running in Air Quality Warnings weather is not a good start for any run.
• Sometimes, I just hate running.

When I got home, I moaned about my awful run to Ragnar, who tsked and then I went to take a shower.

It was then that I saw myself in the mirror and realized why even the worst of runs is a good run: I saw myself and thought, "Damn, girl. You're looking good."

There's no possible way that I could have lost ten pounds in a 30 minute run, or that my physiology had changed to look more athletic. Regardless, I saw myself and I appreciated each curve, like the chemistry of my brain had decided to interpret curves differently. The slight dimple of abs around my stomach wasn't a depressing admission of how much fat I wanted to lose, it was a figure with hints of steel underneath. My butt wasn't depressingly large, it was perfect and as Beyoncé says, 'bootylicious' (or whoever says that).

The point is, the runner's high came in late, and gave me a wonderful self-esteem boost as I looked in that mirror. I was fine.