Pounding It Out

I was never picked last for kickball. I was spared that particular childhood trauma by virtue of being actually quite GOOD at kickball. I could kick with precision, and really far. I wasn't afraid of the ball. I would play in dresses and Mary-Janes much to the chagrin of my teacher, a former nun.

I was good.

I was the ONLY girl who played.

I have probably, in a very human fashion, picked things I'm good at to participate in throughout my life. I'm tall, so I'm a good fit for basketball or volleyball. I love music so band was a good fit. I haven't pushed myself outside that zone, In fact, I am pretty comfortable not doing that.

That doesn't make me unusual I think we're all a bit like that.

Something happened last year though. My husband says it's a midlife crisis but it's more than that. It's a midlife SHAKEUP. It started before then, I started working on my weight when I had the great heart incident, but something started happening when I started moving more.

I wanted to move more than that.

The first time I stumbled through an aerobics video at home and in shame and awkwardness, I fell on the floor and collapsed heaving and gasping - 7 minutes in to a 30 minute video. Then I did it the next day and the next day. Until I could do all of it. This went on for a long time, me doing work out videos from YOUTUBE or a CD my friend burned me. Sometimes I'd go old school and pull out Billy Blanks.

Don't laugh, Billy Blanks will kick your ass.

But something happened over the past year, in that not just I was moving, I was suddenly with people who were also moving. They were also dragging me along with them, encouraging me. My family too realized that suddenly I was pushing in a new direction and became my #1 cheerleaders. And then some how some time that I don't know when it happened I stopped walking.

And I started running.

I run intervals which means I run then I walk then I run then I walk, because I'm fat and slow and not strong enough to kick ass and just run. It's a little frustrating because my brain wants to RUUUUUUN. My body won't do it yet but my brain wants to fly. It wants to ignore the screaming in my knees and the way my quads don't want to work at all.

I'm not good at this. It's weird to be so compelled toward something I'm patently NOT at all good at. But here I am, waking up tired and sore from running and a gym class yesterday. I don't really know if I'm ever GOING to be good at this. I just know that for the first time in along time, I'm gonna keep doing something I'm terrible at because I want to see what I can do.

It's a weird feeling. But I kind of love it.