They say it’s simple. You just put one foot in front of the other. You just … run, only slower.
Aha. Not simple. I can’t remember how many times I was garbed for a jog only to back out last minute. So I ended up walking. I declared myself a walker, not a runner. I even justified myself by seeking out those articles listing down cons of running over other low impact sports (say, swimming).
Truth be told, I felt silly and self-conscious. I felt like an absolute dork for not knowing how to jog. I didn’t know if I was doing it right. What the heck do you do with your arms? How do you breathe? Is my ass jiggling around too much? God, my thighs are too big.
Yeah, yeah, I know jogging isn’t rocket science. I don’t know when exactly I took a chance. I just felt that I had constrained myself long enough and I just ran! To hell with what I looked like.
It was liberating!
When I started feeling my leg muscles starting to burn, when my huffing had evened out into comfortable, controlled breathing, when I felt that sweat break out … that’s when I knew that I had broken that invisible barrier of self-consciousness and cowardice.
I stopped jogging for about month because so much was going on at the time. But when my feet hit the ground the other day during "carless oval" day, it seemed right and familiar. My Adidas-clad feet welcomed the feel of the hard asphalt. I had finally gotten my “runner’s high” and I was hooked.
Now, if only I knew what I looked like from behind.
Originally posted 29 Sept 2005
