Fighting A Running Battle

Some people enjoy running.  There are people who arise each morning, lace up their shoes and pound the pavement or trail, enjoying all that nature has to offer. 

I hate running.  Perhaps it's the shoes.  Women's running shoes seem to come in only white and blue, blue and white, white or blue. 

I received a pair of new running shoes for Christmas.  They are white and blue.  Not a romantic dark blue or trendy arctic blue, but rather a gray-blue. A white and gray-blue shoe that reminds you that you will be doing battle, which you will, as soon as you put them on.  I might feel better prepared if they were red and yellow.

Of course, there are also the clothes one wears to run.  During winter you wear tights to stay warm.  Form hugging, fat defining tights.  Summer isn't much better because in order so as not to over heat, you wear shorts.  Really, really short shorts.  Very thin, very short, very fat revealing, thigh rubbing shorts.

So why do I put on those horrible clothes and lace up my battle ready shoes and beat myself up at least three (but hopefully five) times a week?  I'd like to think that I'm getting healthy, losing weight and stemming the slow decline to old age.  But really I suppose I do it just to prove to myself that I can.  I really did move my short, fat frame around the park, impervious to my neighbors glances, ignorant of my heavy breathing and blind to my pain ravaged face. All so that I can say,  "I did it."

Tomorrow I'll be dreading the wind, the cold, the tights and the shoes but I'll go out and when I return I'll be glad I won't have to do it again. At least not for another 24 hours, anyway.