Running for the Birds
Finding motivation when you don’t get a “runner’s high”
Content note: Medical and weight issues.
This is not going to be one of those inspirational blog posts about how running cures depression or anxiety or any of the other litany of problems or illnesses that humans face. I am no role model when it comes to fitness or health issues, physical or mental. I am a slow and sporadic runner, and face internal battles against a stream of excuses nearly every day that I have a run planned. This morning was one of those days.
I wake at six, without an alarm, having gone to bed a bit before midnight. I lie there, trying not to fall back asleep, while justifying why I should skip my planned six-mile run. I’m sore from yesterday’s testosterone injection. I have the sniffles — maybe I’m getting a cold. There’s rain in the forecast — maybe there will be a thunderstorm. Life is pointless and it doesn’t matter whether I run or not anyway.
After an hour of this I get up, make a cup of tea and turn on the computer, resigned to spending another day playing video games and getting angry at things I read on the web. By the time I finish the tea I’ve somehow convinced myself that I should run anyway, just to see the swans at the Palace of Fine Arts.
