What are you running from?

On occasion I am asked what I am running from. Usually I just laugh this off and say nah that's not what it's about.

There are several ways to really answer the question, aside from shrugging it off.

I run away from something, but it's not really something that's easy to admit to. I run away from the weak undisciplined fat person I was for the majority of my life.

I run for the energy I have everyday, for the satisfaction of knowing I have extended my life expectancy by heaps, for the confidence that discipline gives me, and because the reasons to run almost always outweigh the reasons not to.

I realized that people who don't run physically, still run metaphorically. They run from the effort that it takes to haul ass out the door. They run from the commitment it takes to just do it. They run from change.

How often I get told that my running can only end in long term injury is amazing, this I respond to with, then it will be time to swim, or bike but for now running has transformed me into who I am.

We all run, some physically, some metaphorically, and for some riding or swimming is their running, but the primal human instinct is to fight or flight.

I chose to do both as flight is my weapon to fight the person I no longer want to be.

It has also recently occurred to me how stark the contrast is between the roles in my life, and how little overlap there is. The old saying "wherever you are be present" is becoming something very tangible for me.

On a run day I play 3 parts. First when I get up it's the daddy/hubby role, making porridge and babychinos for the kids, the it's out the door for work role, performing my day job, but at about 11:30 it's time to change, clothes and role to runner. Back from my run and it's work and then daddy/hubby again.

It's oddly amusing to me, that the parts of my life are so separate, and so clearly defined.

I was asked recently how do you excel at something. The on,y answer I have is " have the discipline to force yourself out the door no matter what, just do it" (Nike really picked a good slogan there which I never really got until I became a runner)