The Path

Every morning now it's the same. My alarm sounds at 5:45am. I hit the snooze button twice until I finally drag myself out of bed. My sleep hasn't been total. I'm woken at least twice by my snoring, scratching, six year old Cavalier who needs to go outside. She's not like my former Cav, who went outside, did her business and quickly made her way back in to the warmth. Oh no. This one likes to smell new smells, greet the cats and generally check that all is as she left it.

But still, I wake and don my running gear. It is still dark when I make my way to the reserve. During the winter I have wondered what motivates me to keep doing this? Is it commitment to my fitness, my mental health? Is it a need to doggedly keep trying until I reach the 10k goal? Is it to silence the voices from the past who still whisper with the sinister undertones of the now dormant eating disorder? Or is it simple lunacy? I don't know. Maybe a combination of all of them. I suspect so. But every morning the path calls and I heed it.

I estimate now that I have been doing this for two years. It's become a habit. There are times where I feel I could run and keep on running if not for time constraints. There are others where running my average of 6k is an exercise in endurance from start to finish. Still, the end is always the same. That delicious feeling of a body that feels awake and alive, the blood coursing through my veins and an indescribable feeling of being clean. I don't know what that's about. The end is the reason I run. The high that I suspect is a million times better than the one any chemical can give. The knowledge that I have once again conquered the arguments I put in front of myself. 

Sometimes the run is a lonely place. It's just me there alone in the slumbering, dark neighbourhood. I find the voice of my RunKeeper strangely comforting - the American voice who, every five minutes tells me the time I've been running, the distance and my average pace. I play games with her, trying to increase some numbers and decrease others. She's become a bit of a motivating friend, better than any personal trainer. She doesn't yell at me to do better or go faster. She just gives me the facts. It's my own voice that urges me on, saying, "Keep going! You can do this! Stop complaining! You know this is the hard bit and it gets easier! Don't be lazy!"

The impossible has happened. Several years ago my doctor said he wanted me to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight. At the time I thought he was dreaming. I was only 19 when I was first pregnant and I thought that asking a 40-something year old woman to get back to the same weight as her 19 year old self was beyond the realms of possibility. But I did. I've lost 6kg and I'm here. I used to think that kilos weren't really heavy but I was carrying a 3kg bag of oranges the other day and marvelled at the weight of it. I've lost two bags of oranges! Remarkable!

I don't know where this running will take me. At the moment I don't care. I hope one day I'll get to the 10k goal. I remember how elated I felt the first time I ran my first full kilometre - a whole circuit of my running track. I guess it's simply a case of adding just one more circuit until I get there. It's achievable. I know it.