Day 170: Fit

Wonderful snowy night run a few hours ago, and I finished feeling better than when I'd started, with the sense that I could have gone longer, that my muscles were getting juicy and my mind had settled into quiet. It takes a few kilometres for my mind to slow down, to find stillness, to enter the body more fully. Running reminds me of yoga that way. There is a peace to occupying the body as it works. Repetitive effort is the key ingredient, for me.

When I started out, a thought popped in my mind: why am I trying to be fit? What is my goal? What kind of fitness am I aiming for? Is it mental toughness? A kind of emotional fitness, the calm of knowing that I can get through difficult moments? Do I want to be able to pull my kids on a sled? (I can already do that). Do I want to finish certain races, and if so, why? Is my motivation the goal itself, or the many moments that pull me toward the goal. The only reason I am a writer is not because I've achieved certain goals (though that's nice), it's because I love to write, and I can't imagine my life without that form of expression.

I would like to be a life-long runner, or at least a life-long exerciser, and for that to work, the goal can't be the completion of a race. It has to mean something else to me. It has to matter in a much more visceral and practical way, to my life.

For the first time in my life, I've practiced something, exercise-wise, for a full year. I've been doing yoga regularly (at least twice a week) for the past year, and not because I want to be a yoga guru or a teacher or a master student; because I love the way it makes me feel; I love being in the classes, and I love the feeling I have after the classes.

So, running: do you speak to me in the same way? When I'm out running, I sure feel that way. But somehow it's harder to get myself out for a run than out for a yoga class. Not sure why. It's not that the run is harder than the yoga class, not at all. But I have a tendency to be competitive when I'm running--with myself, I mean; and that makes the run somewhat less appealing. I went longer than usual tonight, and I wondered and hoped and pray that I'm not setting a new precedent, and that I will feel disappointed in myself on the nights when I run shorter or slower or less.

Expectations. They can make or break one's mental fitness.