I want to love you. After hours of research and checking you out in-person, I thought you were the one. My husband made me promise you’d be my forever partner-in-crime. I used a lot of social capital to convince him to eliminate your predecessor and haul you down multiple flights of indoor and outdoor stairs during a blizzard so I could start building a future with you.
Our first encounter was pure bliss. I loved your features, although your app is useless. I quickly got over that. We connected. Our time together lengthened. Our relationship more complex. A combination of highs and lows, fast and slow. Outside factors telling me how we should be. Despite being 100% in control, I felt you challenging me in ways that left me breathless and angry in one moment, and inspired and exhilarated the next. The love-hate relationship returned.
The thermometer hovers well below zero. The calendar says days are getting longer but my soul questions if this eternal Hell known as Winter in Wisconsin will ever end. Sure, this is a snowmobilers playground and for Nordic skiers, snowshoers and hockey loving skaters this is paradise. For mediocre runners who embrace mild temperatures and dry pavement, this 6-months can be a fitness dealbreaker.
And you dreaded treadmill are not helping, despite your best intentions. I suppose it makes sense. Centuries ago, your ancestors were invented in England as a way to rehab prisoners – a way for them to suffer and learn from their sweat. As a bonus, their efforts might even mill a bit of corn or pump some water. It was a way to atone for their sins. Today, that’d be considered torture.
Instead, runners like me, pay for and choose this, as a form of fun. While a subtle difference, it is an important one. One that I’m finding is helping me find some fleeting moments of joy with you, despite your desire to break me. Your Ipad holder means I can re-watch Tim Riggins and Friday Night Lights. Somehow, watching those kids live large in Texas and relishing in their adolescent mistakes makes the mileage go faster, even while deep down I struggle to not hate you.
Yes, my legs still ache and my heart throbs over you. But, I keep choosing you, despite knowing I can walk away. I choose you because life and our relationship are a long-term play. There’s a lesson embedded in the endless pounding my Glycerins make on the treaded belt. Things that matter are hard. Often times, the higher the stakes, the harder the journey.
I’m on a multi-year journey to live a life in alignment. A life that prioritizes health – where I have the energy and vibrancy and joy needed to chase my kid and dreams, while still managing the day-to-day mundane chores that come with being a grown-up. You know, that whole adulting thing we dream of as kids.
My relationship with you, helps me achieve that. You remind me that I’m capable of more than I believe. That when things get tough and I want to walk away, I’m actually the gal that hits up the up arrow and guns it for a final 30. Who chooses to end on a high note.
There are a million websites, self-help books, and experts who try to tell me there are simple hacks, shortcuts and solutions to living an easy, stress-free, perfect life that’s packed with joy and financial success. Heck, for just a few extra dollars, they’ll even throw in a decluttered house, a perfect kid, and a wrinkle free forehead.
As if. As magical as that sounds, I’ll pass. As I get older, I’m finding that I appreciate the hard work more. I trust a process where showing up continuously and doing the work, even if you don’t want to, ultimately pays dividends. That come Spring, when I step outside onto dry pavement, I’ll reap the rewards of this relationship because I earned it. Because you and I found a common ground and consistently worked together. And in May, it’ll be your foundation that carries me across that finish line on Madeline Island, when I complete my first half-marathon since the pandemic started.
Someday, I won’t get to choose you. Age. Circumstance. Something will get in the way. As much as I hate to admit it, I’ll be sad when that day comes. So for now, bring it. Challenge me. Push me. I’ll do my best to find joy in the journey. To remember that I choose you. That I am lucky to have you as my partner-in-crime. That we are in fact, better together.
Always and forever,
Beth