July 28, 2017
I’ve heard people say they like running because it gives them a chance for their mind to wonder, think through things, and think about upcoming events. While running they reach a sort of Zen; not really thinking about anything in particular, but also thinking about everything.
That’s never been the case with me. I’ve always hated running and while I run I think about how much it sucks that I’m running. I do listen to music to keep my mind off the pain in my legs and the sweat in my eyes. The music gives me some extra adrenaline to keep going, but as for my mind wondering, it always flows back to how uncomfortable I am.
Then I added a weighted vest. I’ve always paid attention to my running times and adding the vest does slow me down. But the point of the weighted vest is to improve stamina, so the time doesn’t bother me so much.
Sometimes I think about what other people think about when they run. Do they think about their kids? Their job? Is running their form of stress relief? What about marathoners and Iron Man athletes? What the hell can you possible think about for hours at a time?
Thought is a weight much like the vest, but may carry you in different directions. The heavier the thought, the more it slows you down despite how fit you are. The lighter the thought, the more it propels you forward. Emotions and stress slow us down, the more we think about them, the more they pile up. That’s always been how stress is personified: like little sand bags that keep stacking upon your shoulders.
That invisible weight: thought, heaviest of all; sticking to the bottom of your shoes after each step, clinging to the edges of your dumbbells, and hanging like invisible icicles from the hems of your active wear.
All the little things weighting you down: spouse and family, work and school, deadlines and bills, bank accounts and dept. Your past. All these things pulling you back like an elastic band or pull against you like dragging a weighted sled. All the while your heart pumps the blood to your active mind and spreads the thought throughout your body again like the oxygen from your lungs.
My heaviest weight is my unborn daughter, Bebee. If you didn’t know before, you know now: When we found out her gender, we also found out her heart isn’t working properly. In utero she is fine, developing normally, but when she is born she will have to have surgery. Her heart won’t be able to pump blood through her lungs, and therefore, oxygenate her blood. As of now we don’t know how serious it is and won’t know until she’s born. The doctors are certain she will have to have surgery. Only time will tell how serious and what kind.
So I trudge on. Shoes 10.5 oz, socks 2.2 oz, underwear 3 oz, shorts 6.7 oz, shirt 5.1 oz, vest 20 lbs, body weight 195lbs. But Bebee slows me down the most. The weight of the unknown. My wife carrying the physical and emotional weight of not only pregnancy, but of a pregnancy with complications. I carry my 3 year old son who is beginning to understand he will have a sister, and I carry how we will have to explain to him Bebee is sick.
Back to that looming and now haunting question: Why am I doing this? It seems I’m always asking, always rededicating. It follows me like a ghost in the morning, flowing behind my shadow. It hovers above me just outside the light of the sun. It drips onto my mat and soaks my clothes along with the sweat and occasional blood. It pumps through my veins and heart, in and out of my healthy lungs and up to my brain.
While I run, I think about my daughter.
Read the full story at: https://beauhulgan.wixsite.com/beauhulgan-writer/road-to-the-beast
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