A treadmill run is different than a run on pavement, concrete, and dirt. I listen to music on a treadmill so I don't have to hear the repetitive thud of my feet with each labored step, let alone the grunts of the guys who are trying too hard in the nearby weight-lifting area. I have a playlist of trusty songs that help set the mood. Tunes or not, I use running as a time to think through things in my life. I focus in on something and I "run it out", or run toward it. I know it could sound silly, but for some reason when my body is in that intense of motion and I'm pushing that hard, it's the perfect time to think through the tough things and remind myself I can survive; remind myself I am enough.
That run, that day, that one familiar song hit me in just the right way.
I'll give you one more chanceIt nearly knocked the wind out of me and my eyes welled up. I fought it. I pushed and breathed through it. And then I thought about how a friend told me the other day she was proud of me for enduring. Although I questioned if it were true, I also immediately thought she hit it right on the mark. I have endured things I didn't know I could, and I am enduring right now. Endurance isn't easy or pretty, but it takes strength, patience, and drive.
To say we can change or part ways
And you take what you need
And you don't need me
...
And you know you don't need me
And if I recover
Will you be my comfort
Or it can be over
Or we can just leave it here
To endure means to continue, last or survive; to suffer without yielding, to suffer with patience.
I thought about how I got where I did with running, I had to push past a lot of resistance in myself. In moments like that one, and usually a moment in every run, there's a choice. It's an incredibly fine line, but it's still a choice: push on in spite of a block, physical or mental – or slow down, even stop. Usually if you can push, there's this feeling like you're weightless, your breaths are effortless, and your body is a machine. I lovingly call it the zone. I hope for a stretch of it in every run.
Sometimes a song will put me in the zone and that day that song did. I realized that enduring through something in life is the same. Like running, if you don't press on through a difficulty, you don't get to the good stuff. You have to endure to get to the place where you are floating and breathing easy and moving forward.
The summer before last, an injury caused me to take several months off from running. When I came back to it, it was so difficult I was sure all that I'd put in over the span of about three years was lost. I'd lost my breath, and when that was working my muscles weren't, and if it wasn't one of those it was my motivation. It became so much work it wasn't enjoyable and I could not get to the place that made it all worth while. My body was no longer a machine. However, over only a few weeks recently, pushing through the discomfort and the disappointment has brought me back to the place where I can do it and I love it.
And that's the thing about enduring, it takes an intentional push to get through to a better place.
