Throughout the summer I continued to follow the 5k training program I had downloaded off the internet, though it was done in fits and starts. One week I would be right on track, getting in my 3 run days and at least 2 cross training days. Then the next week ART would rear up his head and either I would have a massive infection that took me into the sidelines or swelling of my right knee which made running sound like a Rice Krispies commercial with snapping, crackling and popping over a loud speaker. I knew it was bad when I would run past a neighbor out watering his front cactus who would shoot me a mildly disturbed glance and ask if I was ok. Apparently he wasn't aware of the human knees' capability of making such a variety of tones and crescendos, thanks ART! So as June wore on, the desert heat rose, and my knee and body rebelled I started getting depressed. As I was running I would think, there is no way I can do a half. Look at how slow I am. I'm not completing more than a mile in the 20 minutes the training plan allocates for the daily run. I'm sweating so much I think I could easily bring the state of AZ out of the current drought. What have I done? What have I committed to? Despite these Debbie Downer thoughts I kept going, kept trying though I honestly didn't know why.
July arrived and ho boy so did the summer heat. I've dealt with an AZ summer in the past, I lived out here 10 years ago and knew that the summers got a bit, well, oven like. Like when you are making fish sticks, you have to heat the oven to 400 degrees and when you first open the oven door to put the fish in the oven you are hit with this burst of intense heat that makes your eyeballs seize up and shrink just a bit in the eye sockets. You certainly shove the pan in the oven quick to close that door. You don't want to stand right in front of that oven door much less live inside the oven! But here it was, summer in the desert, no avoiding it. I figured out that in order to do my daily run in some form of comfort I would have to get up at about 4am. I am not a morning person. No way, no how. Unless I could run in slippers, pjs and a large mug of coffee, it was not going to happen. This pushed me to face another fear. Enter: the treadmill.
Sure I've WALKED on the treadmill, but I've never run. Even when walking I would have a death grip on the hand rails convinced that if I took my hands off I would be thrown backwards off the treadmill with the grace of a hippo belly flopping into her mud pit. Art has done a lot of things to me, broken my hips, eaten my right ankle, puffed my knees up like marshmallows over a campfire, but it's also managed to completely mess up my sense of balance. I walk at times with a significant limp on my right side which makes my entire body pitch to the right. I've fallen over while standing still. I've pitched backwards for no apparent reason, both of which have happened in the shower which is even scarier. So now I was thinking of running on a contraption which could potentially seriously injure myself and my ego.
The first day I tried the treadmill it was a balmy 115 degrees outside and there was just no good time in the day that I could go for my usual run around our housing development. With great trepidation I drove to our YMCA and strolled nonchalantly into the cardio room. Yeah I could do this, the treadmill can't smell my fear. Just play it cool. With heart racing, nerves strung tight I straddled the belt of the treadmill and started pushing the buttons. I picked my 'view' the oh so glorious highschool track option, entered my weight (all the while wondering if the gal next to me was peeking and would call me out as a liar) and then it wanted to know what speed. Uhm...I don't know. I don't actually know how fast I go. I figured I would just slowly increase my rate until I found the speed I could comfortably run at.
Slowly inching up I found my pace but kept my hands tightly gripping the rails. I was terrified. I spent 20 minutes digging my nails into the hard plastic of those rails. I'm sure that to this day people using that machine will be wondering how a set of 10 half cresent moon indentions were made so deeply into that hard plastic...But I did it! I ran on the treadmill! Yay me! I still preferred running on the asphalt. However this preference did not include running on asphalt that was radiating heat equal to the heat produced by my oven at 400 degrees. I am not a fish stick. I don't take well to being baked.
The second time I went on the dreaded mill I decided I was being silly. I mean look at all of the other people who use a treadmill. I've never seen reports of someone being killed by one. Heck there are YouTube videos filled with guys doing all sorts of interesting dance techniques and choreographed videos on the machine. What the heck, I've seen people using them to walk their dogs so why can't I let go and run??
Letting go. That's what I had to do. Physically and mentally. Art had filled my head with so many doubts and anxieties I had to learn to let go of them in order to move forward. I knew I couldn't let go of all of them (my head is very full of doubts and anxieties...honestly I think somewhere I have a rented storage space full of additional issues thanks to living with Art for so long) but I could at least learn to let go of this one. This fear of being flung off and falling on my face, on the treadmill and on my quest to do a half marathon. I pushed the start button, I started to fall into my pace and I let go. One finger at a time but I did it. I let go. I didn't fall down, I didn't end up being shot putted into the back of the cardio room. I ran.
I can't say that this event has led to a love affair of running on a treadmill. But it excited me that I could DO it. Something else in my head that I thought I could never do, like running. But I did it. And I did it on my own. There was noone there telling me to let go, noone pulling my fingers up while keeping their hand on my back. There was just me and my desire to prove to MYSELF that YES I can do this. I CAN. Art cannot have this fear over me anymore. Like Art stripped my joints and immune system I've stripped at least this one fear away from him. I took back another little piece of me.
Now we are entering August and it's still flippin' hot out here. I'm looking forward to the end of September when I'm sure I'll be able to return to my evening runs around the golf course in our development. Listening to the prairie dogs chirp as they from hole to hole, watching the sun glide beyond the mountains in the distance and smell the sweetness of the cooling desert sands around us. Until then at least I can get on that treadmill, watch some mindless t.v. (why oh why do ALL the t.v.s have to have FOX news on them???) and just let go.
:) Hang in until fall. And I gotta know where you found that treadmill picture?
ReplyDeleteLove it! Yay for you to take back that piece of you and let go of the fear!
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