Jogger's Revenge

I have always enjoyed working out and being physically active. Gymnastics as a kid; leaping, bounding and hiding from the cops as a teenager; aerobics classes as an undergrad to bump me up to full-time student status; impromptu living room dance parties; committing hours of my life to the elliptical in my late 20's and subsequently losing 25 pounds and a big giant ass because of it in my 30's. But I have never really enjoyed running distances or running at all. Boring, painful, utterly loathsome. Hard landings from gymnastics messed up my ankles, shins and knees and the elliptical is a very forgiving machine for my dysfunctional bones and joints, but unlike when I lived in Richmond, I don't have a free gym 2 blocks away anymore. And the idea of running as opposed to the smooth glide of the elliptical sounded about as fun as plucking my pubic hair while drinking spoiled milk.

But I moved to Pittsburgh, just blocks from the amazing gem known as Frick Park (insert your favorite Frick'n joke here) and I have found that with the right shoes (thanks, Jeremy) and the right attitude (thanks, Colton) or the right amount of guilt for being a Glee-loving, Catan-playing, email obsessed computer/couch potato (thanks, society), that I have discovered how to jog, in fact, after a few miles into it and a warmed up body, I have discovered how to run.

Today, for instance, I jogged 4.5 miles with my Wilson in tow and walked an additional 1.5 for a total distance of 6 miles. It took just over 70 minutes. If you average the walk + run time, I'm doing about 11.66 minutes for every mile. That's not too bad, really. Okay, it's slow. I'd be the last person puffing and barfing at the end of a marathon or race, but I'm not so worried about that as of yet. Right now, the goal is to conquer my hatred of running/jogging and embrace the effects of cardiovascular fitness, increased energy, fresh air, beautiful scenery and let's face it, a hot looking body.

I've uploaded an app to my iPhone that tracks my distance and pace, so even if I cheat and walk a little bit, which I did today on the grueling uphill battlefield portion of my pathway, all is calculated and forgiven. The fact that after staying up until 3 am last night, tooling around the house, wasting time on my computer, not writing my dissertation and drinking beer, I awoke today, ate a solid breakfast, drank a ton of water, geared up and headed out the door with a very excited dog.

Other tricks that help me. Wear clothes you can sweat in, cotton undies and socks. Don't bring house keys. Do bring extra poop bags for Wilson. Running makes him shit. Do load up iTunes with extra crappy pop music like Lady Gaga because if there's one thing I've learned from all those hours invested in the elliptical, it's that a steady beat and dancy music keeps my body moving and makes time fly by - a true blessing. I also push myself further, move faster and if another great dance song comes on, like say Gaga's "Just Dance," well, then I just have to keep running, don't I? In fact, I'd like to give a big motherfucking shout out to that crazy bitch Lady Gaga, because without her I don't think I'd be running at all. And guess what happened post-run? I vacuumed my entire house, including the furniture, with a goddamned smile on my face and spring in my step.

Friends, don't fear for me. This change of pace, if you will, does not interrupt my steady diet of cheeseburgers, cheap red wine, and good music consumption. But I am happy to say that I certainly smoke far fewer cigarettes than ever before. Which is another tale for another time. Indeed, it is the happy balance of the best of all worlds that dictates this delicious harmony of my life.

Gonna Be OKAY - Just Dance!!!

What's up in my periphery? Earthquakes in Detroit (and Toronto), Kwame handed 19 federal indictments (yes, I voted for him, but only his first time running, when he PROMISED SOOOO much for our city, I voted Freeman Hendrix in round two and lost), torrential downpours in Pittsburgh, a slow and silent and solo night at the homestead with the kids, a little thunder and lighting to keep Wilson and I on our toes, cats lurking in the shadows. There's a whirlwind of great change afoot, I can feel it. The tectonic plates are shifting, justice is being served, but it continues to rain in my dining room, so as much as things change and heave and bob and weave, they also stay the same.

Such as it is, with crashing booms and equally powerful yet non-descript moments of quiet reflective bouncing around and dancing and singing with no one here to see or judge or care, I find myself oscillating like the $20 Home Depot fan in my sweet light purple cave of a bedroom, between one side of love, one side of life, one side from here to there and back again with every subject and facet of life's strange adventures and unpredictable variances with a well-oiled ease. Moving smoothly, flawlessly perhaps, from having real love and a real relationship to the exact opposite, from having a friend who is a friend and not a lover to the exact opposite, from having a lover who isn't even a friend to the exact opposite. From being unemployed to employed overwhelmingly, from being re-charged into my phd work to suddenly underwhelmed by its presence in my life at the very critical moment I think I'm finally ready to jump through another hoop and knock it all out with a 1-2 KT punch. Nope, the fan keeps moving, keeps shifting from side to side, blowing my wits and bits off guard. I may not have felt the quake in PGH, but I feel it every day in my heart and my mind. Just dance.

It's also too hot to go for a run, which I'd love to do, though I'm slow and don't jog more than a few+ miles, but I go go go, hustle, and I blast my Gaga along the way. So instead I'll work on my web presence, rebuilding the site taken down long ago when the petty little twerp I spent five years with deactivated the website I spent a year building. It's okay, the fan blows that away too. When that gets boring, what I have control over right now is the way I sway, shake my hips and shoulders, the volume of the shitty dance pop music I'm blasting, the dishes in the sink that I can't wait to wash, the dirt on my face and hands, the dirtyness of my insatiable appetites left to deal with later. The whirlwind of change is here, it's now, and I know I can also, always control the speed of the fan with which the winds blow about me. I can also turn the fan off.