08.07
Not my gut, but you get the idea. Picture by dotbenjamin on Flickr.
I really don’t like to exercise. I don’t make apologies for it, I don’t try to explain it, I just do.
Running, though, has a special reserved batch of hate I’m willing to throw at it whenever the subject is brought up.
I’m not a runner. And now that I’m carrying a spare tire that weighs more than my 7 year old, it looks even less appealing. The fatter I get, the less I want to run.
Yet it’s probably the only way I’m going to lose the weight.
There’s a weird thing about me that causes me to do things that are difficult. Unusually difficult. And I do them better and with more effort than things that come naturally.
For instance: It’s 11PM, it’s time for bed. I’m exhausted. I gotta get up early. So what do I do? I start cleaning the bedroom. Why? Because it’s hard and it’s the last thing I want to be doing right then.
Or the time back in Hawaii that there was a blood drive at the shipyard. I dutifully gave blood. Then I went home. Lara (my font of common sense) wasn’t there, so what did I do? Did I tell myself “dude, you’re down a pint, play some WoW?” Nope. Not me. I mowed the backyard. In the Hawaii heat. I didn’t pass out, but man, I wanted to.
The best example I have, though, actually involves running. Back in my Navy days, on our 2004 deployment to the Gulf, I had been working out with my good, dear friend Angie. For about two months, we hit the elliptical machine for an hour almost every day. During that time, I got down to 191 lbs., the lowest weight I’ve been at since high school (I’m about 240 now). We pulled into a port, and there was a ship-sponsored 5K run. The port was Jebel Ali, right outside Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates. Also known as THE FRACKING DESERT. I don’t know what posessed us to do this, but Angie and I did in fact run the 5K in the desert. Sucessfully, if not speedily (though 26-27 minutes is still not bad). That was a helluva challenge. Why we stopped working out after that, I haven’t a clue.
So I think there has to be a certain amount of challenge involved for it to be worth getting off my fat ass for. I think this gut has reached the point where it will provide sufficient challenge all by itself.
Now I need some running shoes.
Ah yes, our workout days. That was probably the most motivated I’ve ever been to work out, knowing that I had someone to encourage me… someone who hated every minute of it just as much as I did. As I recall, we quit working out b/c of the water shortage on the ship and the inability to wash our workout clothes. We were about a week away from our last port visit so we agreed to wash laundry in port and resume working out when we got underway again. Yeah, well, that never happened. It’s a shame, because as much as I hated it, I really was starting to feel good. Good luck my friend, I hate running with a passion and I just lack the self-motivation to do it. Just don’t push yourself too hard and hurt yourself.