Because I should

The run yesterday never happened. I got home and it was dark. And mostly, THERE WERE ANTS IN MY BATHROOM!! As any of you know if you’ve been reading this from last summer, I HATE ANTS! AND THEY DON’T BELONG IN MY BATHROOM!! They were on the walls, in my tub, on my soap dish. I promptly scoured the place with both ant spray to kill the bitches, and then bleach to get rid of anything on the surface they could be attracted to. Rest assured, my landlord will hear about this.

Then I went to the co-op, drooled over their organic lotions and masks, avoided a few of the younger workers staring at me oddly because I was wearing sweatpants, my rain boots, and a pretty formal coat, and went home and did my taxes. Somehow I end up owing Maryland more than I am getting back from the feds. Whatevs – as long as I don’t get jailed.

So, no run. BU THE ANTS RETURNED THIS MORNING. But they were aimless. No conversations around the soap dish today! I laughed. So sad. They will be gone.

So, that switch I was talking about relating to my dedication – yeah, definitely turned on. Simply the level of alertness I woke up with yesterday tipped me off to it. Waking up at six am has always been a theoretical ideal in my head – just enough time to eat breakfast and drink coffee and read the paper/blogs not-too-quickly and still get in something super productive before work/school. However, when it’s not a habit, it is super difficult to get into. I woke up at six am all through high school, and thinking about it, I have risen that early at all of the times in my life that I have been most productive and most proud of what I was doing. It was never hard, even when I would get to sleep at 2 am in high school. However, in college this ended, actually sophomore year of college it ended. Febbie spring and summer I was still an early riser. Was it the booze? Was it the… hell, I don’t know. I bet it was the booze.

So I think it’s back now – is it too early to call? Getting to work early today was not hard at all. The run was so easy I thought about adding a few miles, and then thought better of it for these reasons: a) I didn’t run yesterday because of tight shins b) I don’t have ALL THAT MUCH time before I’m supposed to start work – or at least, until my boss is used to me starting work and c) I decided I could buy myself a latte as a treat and that would take even more time. But it was easy! Some middle-aged dude in an outfit that eerily matched mine and who was clearly a seasoned runner judging by his legs, paced me for about a mile. That felt great. I’m already looking forward to tomorrow’s run, and Saturday’s ten miler. I haven’t looked forward to back-to-back runs since I was sick-in-the-head in junior year. And then I got mono, so that proves nothing.

Part of this is that I re-found the website socialworkout.com. I joined what they are calling ‘the feralicious challenge’, which gives you guidelines for the month of march to do things like 1,000 push-ups, 1,000 crunches, 20 all-natural meals, 6 hours of outdoor activities, etc. in order to get back to your “wild” nature and show how simple this life can be – no machines, a few group classes, outsideness, and raw veggies. It’s not extraordinary and a lot of it has to do with your own base level. However, it does allow you to post daily and keep up your tracking, and everyone can see it. I apparently do well when I challenge “myself” in comparison to other people. The math breaks down to about 33 push-ups, tricep dips, crunches, and lunges a day, and today I have no time so I am finding time to do them at every bathroom break (so my boss doesn’t worry, or think I’m any less intelligent than he already thinks I am), which is finding me drinking a hella lot more water. I’ve already downed 1.5 liters and It’s not even noon. A few other changes I’m seeing is my aversion to any coffee not made in a French press, and it’s taking me hours to finish a latte. I’ve also taken up drinking more milk (a latte a day keeps the blues away!) to up my vitamin D intake like the doctor told me to. Also I’ve been drinking green tea. Maybe at some point in my life I will transition to green tea with milk for breakfast and avoid all the extra packaging I’m throwing away. Or not.

I am quite pleased that this trigger has been pulled, although it brings up another question. I have a habit of becoming pretty dedicated about things I have decided I “should” do, with no regards to whether I enjoy it, as part of the decision has to do with a firm belief that if I do it enough I will enjoy it. There are pretty hilarious stories floating out there of things like when I got it into my head that I should eat more seaweed, and sat at the Touchstones lunch table making myself gag with every bite, while my co-workers sat laughing at me. I squealed that if I just ate it enough my body would stop rejecting it. I don’t eat seaweed anymore.

Another similar story is in high school I stopped drinking soda, and in college I went two semesters eating a salad every day. All of this because I should do it. Needless to say the amount of books I have read because I should read them. Running has been like that – running because I should, with the occasional runs that I thoroughly enjoy and the deep seeded knowledge that there is something about it I can’t leave alone, that a part of me thoroughly needs the running. However, nothing had clicked and I was disappointed at how difficult and how averse to getting outside I was, especially when reading other people’s accounts, and hearing about people who “caught the bug”. I wanted the bug! I wanted to be badass!

Serious question here - does anybody else do things 'just because they should'? And if you do, do you end up loving it? I wouldn't go back to drinking soda if I had to (partially because of my deadly fear of aspartame). If I try hard enough, I can blame my attendance at St. John's on my life predilection for the "should's".

So I guess it doesn’t really matter if I have the bug, or if I should run or not. I am deeply enjoying running my few “miles in the bank” every morning. Maybe I will get really intense and start running 60 mile weeks and go for a 50K race later, or maybe I will stop long distance running after the marathon like I planned. I am feeling more alert and stronger, I am liking myself more, now that I feel what consistency is like. And that counts for a lot.