There I was, hitting the pavement, pounding away with my ancient and dilapidated sneakers, only three minutes into my run. I was prepared, I had music to listen to, it was a cold but dry morning and I thought, what the hell! Time to get in shape! Just do it, right? Just do it. Four minutes in I realize I am turning into the Human Tomato. My breath is already coming on hard, shit. And, what’s this? A car filled with high school boys passing me on the left, one with his head out the window?
“Better keep runnniiiiinnnnngggggg whooooooo!” He yells.
I looked around. Yup. That was for me. I could only assume his comments were directed at my backside, which at that moment must have looked like two very large boulders trying to lurch off the top of a mountainside, barely held back by stretching netting…or yoga pants. I kept going…for about fifteen minutes. Then I turned back home, trying to hold my head up, trying not to let the jerkholes of the world get me down….
And I have run a whole handful of times since then! Maybe one hand. This was at our old house, and that was two years ago. I have a problem with motivation. I also have a problem maintaining my dedication to keeping off the beer/cheese induced rolls that at certain points in my life have qualified as “back-boobs.” When I was asked to join a running group in the neighborhood, I thought, yes! Good idea! Then I realized that getting up Sunday mornings really early to heave and puff with people I like might not be a good idea. As they streak away with bionic woman ease, I might not like them as much as I did when we first started. I’d try not to, as I wheezed and yakked into bushes, but it could happen. My ego is carefully pieced together with band-aids and spit, and any more humiliation at the hands of passers-by, in FRONT of my friends, well, that would just be too much. But I feel the need to try again, now.
I bought shoes that didn’t give me planters fasciitis (that’s in blue because I had to look up how you spell it) ones that looked flashy enough to help me run faster, and most importantly, ones that weren’t molding in the basement. Don’t get me wrong, I love to exercise, there are plenty of things I can do willingly, but running just isn’t one of them. Until now. Until…Zombies, Run! Zombies, Run! is an app for your phone, which is also a game. You listen as your guide takes you away from mobs of zombies. You pick things up (in a virtual world) and I think even get to log your progress, though I haven’t checked into the specifics yet. I purposefully went on a run in a creepy section of woods near my house, listening to music with intermittent groans and RUN!!! in my headphones. I was trying to scare myself, but it’s hard to be scared when someone says “here comes a zom” which only made me think of my high school friend’s cousin Zom, from Kentucky, who regularly drank Robitussen until passing out. Actually that is a lot like a zombie, but anyway. Running can be fun! It can! I had a blast! Now I just need to purchase a holster for my phone. Forgetting this little detail meant I was running with my phone jammed into the left side of my bra.
If you’d seen me coming, you’d have seen a tomato-faced woman laughing, with one rectangle breast, trying to run off the boulders in her pants.
I relayed my awesome find to my friend who is a good runner, and she said, one eyebrow up, “You are a freak, aren’t you.” Which I took as high praise, and bang on, sister. Everybody needs to find a way to push the boulders off the hill, or at the very least, build a decent retaining wall.