I keep going.

I love you, elliptical machine!

It wasn’t always like this, mind you. Once upon a time, I was going to Be A Runner, Dammit. Uh, yeah. First my bad ankles decided they were against this plan. Then I got shinsplints. Then I got shinsplints again. AND THEN I got shinsplints SO BAD my doctor told me he would personally cripple me if I stepped on a treadmill again, ever.

Okay.

I am/have been cleared to walk, but… walking? That’s like, old-lady shit. And while I have hearing aids, and knitting problem, and two different kinds of arthritis, I’m still only 36! And… I want to run. I actually have the urge and desire to RUN. It’s really scary.

But I can’t, not at the moment. Until we get this arthritis business under control, I’m only allowed to walk real fast and maybe jog in place (which for some very odd and strange fucked-up reason, does not hurt my knees AT ALL) and ride bikes (hahahahahaha balance issues, what?) and get on the elliptical machine.

Which I LOVE.

LOVE.

I remember the first couple tries on that stupid fucking thing. I hated it. I wanted to cry. I put it on the “weight-loss” setting because that’s intervals and yay intervals and I thought I was going to D.I.E. It was so hard. I was a sweaty jelly mess when that 31 minutes was up and it SUCKED. Balls. Also, my feet were numb. I haven’t completely solved that problem, but it’s not as bad as it was.

Then I did it again the next day. And as I was dripping grody sweat onto the Precor logo, I thought about the things and people who inspire me. Lance Armstrong, for one. Yeah, it’s overdone and he’s kind of a tool, but you cannot deny what that guy has overcome. He had something like 12 different kinds of cancer all over his body, yet he survived and won the Tour de France seven goddamn times. I don’t care who you are, that’s fucking badass and you cannot deny that.

(blahblah doping blahblah maybe he did and maybe he didn’t but I’d like to think that he knows full well the kind of spotlight he lives in and that he is clean also he’s hot and I would totally hit that)

Matt Long. Now, THIS GUY is some kind of ninja. He got his by A BUS and DRAGGED half a block or whatever and the doctors were all “um, you’ll never walk again” and his response to that was “fuck you people, I’m going to RUN again, and what’s more, I’m going to run a goddamned marathon.” Matt Long is a stud.

There are others, but those are the two that keep me moving. When I really just don’t even want to leave the house to go to the gym, I think of those guys and I go. When I get to the gym and think about HOW LONG 30 minutes is, I keep going. When I’m in the middle of it and thinking “ugh, this sucks hairy donkey balls” I turn up the resistance. I keep going. I keep going. I keep going.

I keep going.

1 Comment

Filed under 366, Triathlon

One Response to I keep going.

  1. BAnjeeB

    Keep going my friend! Good job and know that I’m somewhere on some cario/torture machine cursing right along with you!