When I think about being fit my mind travels to when I was young. Yet if my mother hauled out the photo albums you wouldn’t see a little boy with ripped arms and a muscular figure. You would see an awkward looking kid with a lopsided grin as big as can be. Even during the height of my physical prowess, I was lanky and thin. However, the amount of energy I bottled up in such a small frame was ridiculous.
I remember staying awake many nights reading books in an attempt to calm myself down from the lack of physical activity that day. Even still I had to change positions in my blue and white high-backed chair every few minutes because my muscles and body craved action. Being young, I was confined to my room. If I was an adult I would have sought freedom in a midnight run or a moonlit swim but because of my imprisonment, I would often resort to push-ups, sit-ups and leg raises. It satisfied my cravings at the time.
Over the years, I found various ways to utilize the abundance of energy inside me. I found my release in working. To my dismay, one job didn’t cut it. At the end of an eight or nine hour day, I still had this ache for activity in my muscles. I did the only logical thing my mind came up with at the time. I got another job. Then another one. I was working upwards of ninety hours in a single week. Somehow even after twenty-two hours of work in a single day, traveling back and forth between jobs, my body was still restless when I went to lie down to sleep. It was during one of those sleep drunk haze’s when I stumbled across a thought. Maybe, just maybe it wasn’t the number of hours spent active I had to change, but the intensity.
When I was a kid I spent hours playing football with my friends, running sprints after school for track, riding my bicycle around the neighborhood and everything else a boy with no money could do. I was on the go from the moment my feet slipped into my shoes to the time I tried to close my eyes. Now as an adult, I spend a large part of my time commuting in a car or sitting at a desk. Even my spare time is dominated by running errands, researching online, or reading a book. No wonder I can’t close my eyes at night.
One of the best feelings for me in track was setting up and placing my feet in the starting blocks. My body tingled with adrenaline and nervousness as I got ready to take my place. The anticipation boiled my blood and caused my heart to pound with excitement. Yet through all this my mind was clear. I knew my goal and I was ready to unleash myself.
When was the last time you set a physical goal and unleashed the inner demon of play to accomplish it?
Mile 29 