A Few of My Favorite Things

Isn’t running supposed to help relieve frustration?  I’ve just started running again, and it’s literally my fourth morning running, but I’m already looking at the parts of my body I want to firm up with running and saying “Nothing’s happening!”  Like any change can happen in four mornings of running.  When will I just let go of that part and see running (really walking and running, whatever it takes to get me around the park loop twice, which is four miles) as just a meditative beginning to the day?  Why can’t I just do it to enjoy it, and let the rewards come to me slowly if that’s how it works?  Whenever I start to workout, with weights or running, I feel it immediately in my thighs and butt, and not in a good way.  They just get bigger right away, and it makes my jeans feel tight, and then I just ask myself why am I working out if it’s making my least favorite body parts worse!  But I do really enjoy running and working out and so I want to continue to do it, but I just wish I could commit to it and get over the body image part and just enjoy the hour to myself.

Really, I’ve started running again because I want to run 5Ks.  I don’t know why really.  I just have always been interested in doing it.  Maybe because it gives a reason to run regularly.  That is, if I’m “training” for a 5K, or any running race, then of course I should run every morning to train for the event.  It gives me a goal, a reason for the madness.  Ugh, I will continue to do it.  My short term goal is just to run/walk the loop every morning this week.  And then I will make a new goal for next week.