by Lisa Jo
Since I’m not talking, and I’m not fucking, and I’m not running (for the past two days, anyway), I’ve decided to eat a little.
I feel like an alcoholic on a binge after a long stretch of recovery. And everything – all of the horrible eating habits – comes rushing back to me as if I’ve never eaten a healthy food in my life. The addiction is grinning smugly while my helpless body falls limp into a food coma.
To top off the fun, I woke this morning to one of the worst rounds of the Itchy Rash I’ve ever had. Lovely.
In the interest of self-care, I mustered up energy to do what I could to feel better – I stretched out in the sun with a great book. Yeah, about running, but about Life, too, as running always is.
To date, I’ve been using life tools to manage my runs – mostly Endurance and Pure Stubbornness. Today, I find myself rummaging through my fitness tools for something to help manage my life.
I learned an important concept during my weight training this week at the gym. It was Shoulders Day. Now, I know that my shoulders are not my strongest body part, but I was working them pretty good twice a week for quite awhile. Then Coach introduced me to a new machine. I mumbled some self-deprecating comment about my strength, and eyed the baby weights warily. I was only mildly embarrassed when I couldn’t even budge the damn machine – not one fucking inch. But my brain was spinning a lecture for me and tempting me to sit there and keep trying until I got the thing over my head.
Without missing a beat, and without a disappointed face, Coach moved me over to a bench with a set of lighter dumbbells for that set. No problem. We found a weakness and we needed to adjust. Just like that. Later in the workout, I went back to the machine with no weights and still couldn’t press it. So, I have some work to do. No big deal.
Adjustability. Now that’s a powerful tool.
‘We say [it] is the game of life, ‘ Angel said. ‘You never know how hard it will be. You never know when it will end. You can’t control it. You can only adjust.’
~ Christopher McDougall, Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Ever Seen
