sucking wind

When you're lost, where do you even begin to try and find yourself?  I started by looking in the mirror. I didn't see the lean mean rugby playing machine that I used to be when I knew who I was an where I was going.  Instead I saw a confused, slightly... ahem...  "fluffier" version of that girl, but she was still there somewhere.

Run.

First thought that popped into my head was, "Run."  A command to myself to get my gym shorts on, pull out a ratty t-shirt and hit the pavement.  And so I did...

20 minutes of cardio (defined as "heart pumping activity") 5 days a week is the recommended dose of exercise for the average person looking to keep their heart in shape.   20 minutes may not seem like a lot of time (I can't even get a quarter of the way through a pint of ben and jerry's in that amount of time) but 20 minutes of running after perfecting my groove on the couch for the last two weeks?  You guessed it, ouch.

Needless to say, I was unable to run the entire 20 minutes.  I did 10 minutes up the road, turned around and came back.  I had to stop at the 10 minute mark when I turned around and walked for a little bit, but I ran the majority of the time.  My body felt unnatural doing to motions, with my arms and legs trying to figure out how they were supposed to work together to propel me along my way and by the end of it, I was huffing and puffing and sucking wind life my life depended on it (which in some sense it did).

I know now that part of who I am (or at least who I was) is running.  Maybe it will take me some time to find my pace again and let my arms and legs remember what they are supposed to be doing, but hey, I have my first goal and my first direction; and that direction is full speed, straight ahead.