Happy Fun Disease

Run. Pace. Breathe. Feel. The miles pull by under your feet, reflecting neglect, ignoring excuses. Four days ago I was locked onto an elliptical jogger - just one of the fancy toys adorning the floor of this gym I'm trying to join. My feet pushing the yoke while at the same time moving with the pull of the mechanism. Like the exercise was doing itself and I was just lucky to be there with it.
Tonight was different.
Tonight I hit the road.
Five miles along the water. My front door to the Landing and back.

The River Run is right around the corner. And of course despite plenty of time available for me to work on it, I've let other things get in the way and now I'm left to try and cram what should have been months of training into just a few weeks.

Considering just how incredibly lazy I've been about the whole thing, last night went surprisingly well. But it was kinda weird because I found that I kept kinda tricking myself into doing more, even though physically I probably wasn't really ready for it at all.

I mean, when you're on a treadmill you pre-set the time and other variables, and then you just sorta hang on for dear life until the thing tells you to cool down and eventually it shuts itself off. When it's over it's over, and that's all there really is to it.

But when I'm out on the road, it's like I get to a point where I should consider turning back, but don't. The path I train on goes alongside the St. John's River and passes by several office buildings, and it's not that uncommon for me to finally reach one spot where I know I should turn back around and consider it a good night's work -- only to think to myself, "I bet I could still make the next one".

What I'm trying to say is that I had no business running five miles last night. If anything, I should have run like 2 and then worked around that figure this week so that I can build it up gradually until my body is really ready to attack the full distance of this race.
But I was feeling ok -- so I just kept going.
It's just kind of how I am sometimes. There are instances when it works to my advantage, and then there are equal situations where taking on more than I can handle comes back to bite me in the ass. I mean, my legs are definitley sore this morning, but overall I'm feeling pretty good. But that's not to say that I'm ready to run a five mile race tomorrow or anything, you know?.

It's like how I'm continually at odds with my bank records, and catch myself on the edge of being overdrawn far more often than I need to be. Putting even the most important things off until the last second. Taking risks, making gambles. There's a part of it that's thrilling and exciting, but sometimes when you get to stare right into the eyes of how it affects you a different perspective starts to come to light.
I'm not a real big fan of caution
And it's starting to become a problem.
It's why my finances are always a mess. It's how I lost my house. It's part of why my marriage fell apart. It's definitley one of the reasons why I'm going to lose this job that I love so much.
Part of me will always resist
the idea of leaving Neverland.
But sooner or later I'm gonna have to grow up.
[Listening to: Hot Hot Heat, "Talk to Me, Dance With Me"]

Comments