Growing stronger than your resistance

Nov. 20, 2008

Dear Julie,

When humans had to chase and catch wild animals or else go without dinner, we chased wild animals. We ran or starved. Of course, running across slow humans meant steak night for other carnivores, too. A tiger makes Olympic sprinters of us all.

Not joggers. Runners. People who still know what a pounding heart feels like. We moderns don't have to run to the grocery store, but our bodies are still built for speed. Some are just speedier than others.

In grade school I quickly learned I would not be one of the boys who won blue ribbons on Play Day. A child wonders why his legs won't move as fast as another kid's and resigns himself that "runner" is not on his list of possibilities.

Not that I completely gave up. In college my friend David and I used to go for jogs and then recuperate with a cigarette. And I thought running made my lungs burn.

A few years ago Amy, the fitness director at my gym, gave me a 10-week plan supposed to result in the ability to run for half an hour without stopping. The plan prescribed lots of walking at first, interspersed with a minute of running. Gradually the running took over from the walking.

I was so far out of shape that this was almost agony. Walking down my driveway to begin each run felt like the Walk of Doom. In no time I would be wheezing. My shins hurt. Knees, too.

Reaching the half-hour goal didn't feel like an accomplishment because I never felt good while running or afterward. Eventually the appeal of easier workouts on the exercise machines at the gym seduced me.

In their book "Running for Mortals," John "The Penguin" Bingham and Jenny Hadfield say many people quit running because they push their bodies too hard too quickly. "I was raised in the John Wayne generation," Bingham writes. "We were rough and tough and didn't take anything from anybody. We got shot and kept going. We got hurt and still played the game. We were idiots."

That's probably true. Gently and slowly over the past two years I have discovered that my body can do more than I ever knew if I pay attention to it. It can lose weight and keep it off. It can lift weights. It can thrive given exercise, nutritious food and good sleep.

Most days atop a stationary bicycle in Amy's spinning class my heart plays bongos to the rock 'n' roll music. I like the sound. The cyclists emerge from the room swimming in sweat and endorphins.

Running for 45 minutes feels good now, and I know the main reason is that I finally can imagine myself being a runner. Our own resistance to imagining ourselves differently can be our biggest obstacle.

Winning races isn't my goal. Blue ribbons don't mean anything to me now. Health is the prize.

Whenever I sense myself wanting to stop, to yield to the enemy inertia, I remember words Amy shouted out one day in the whirring vortex of strenuous exercise at the gym: "I am stronger than my resistance."

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is a former reporter for the Southeast Missourian.