This puddle should feel humbled

I feel like posting this little story I wrote of a run I went on some time ago. I think that I'm hoping that by posting it and re-reading it I may yet be inspired to get back into this exercise thing whole heartedly!

     I gathered my determination, pulled it down over my ears, and gracefully performed a warm up lap around my housing complex. A little rain in 35 degree weather was just what I needed to get energized, colliding stingingly with my face and bare hands. Time to stretch like a pro- success! Now its time for the run. I ventured back out into the icy downpour (drizzle/mist/what have you) with a tempered plodding, which within seconds broke out into a full on light jog accompanied by heavy breathing. Off to a good start. The great thing about the route I chose to take was that before even a quarter mile, there is long strenuous slight decline, broken up by stairs that you can only overcome by bouncing down. Little known cardio gem: bouncing down stairs.

     I deftly execute my arduous decent, barely sweating any more than I already was from donning my ‘even-though-it’s-spring-time-I-need-a-snowsuit-to-go-running’ outfit. As I traverse a parking lot set beneath the conquered step-laden hill, an assuming puddle gleamed conceitedly in the distance. I noticed it, despite its obvious attempt to remain hidden and ensnare passersby unawares. Of course I noticed it, the ripples from the rain gave it away- I could practically smell the pretentiousness evaporating from this stink hole in my bedroom that morning; and now I found the source of the stank. It was definitely the puddle that stank, not my bedroom. So, with drop-dead-gorgeous determination in my eyes, I stared ahead unblinking, forcing the puddle to assume I had not noticed its smelly trap. I gained on the puddle with unprecedented speed (considering I was going for a ‘run’, you might think I’d be going faster at the time- all part of the mastery, I assure you). With all the grace and wonder of a gazelle fused with falcon, and the stunning intensity of a rhinoceros bred with a entire flock of narwhale-anteater hybrids, I leapt the pooly chasm in a single bound! Or that is what the puddle assumed I would do. Mid arch, with the wings of the horrifying creatures I proposed carrying me what seemed to be several hundred feet above the earth, my foot exploded through the center of the shimmering frigidness below: a fatal blow, followed by my second foot for good measure. “That puddle should feel humbled,” I considered to myself. Anyone observing might have thought to laugh at the feat, perhaps thinking I had accidently landed in a puddle, and after feeling the soaking shock attempted to bound awkwardly to dry land, only to find myself plunging my last dry foot into the underestimated wideness of the puddle. Yet what that person would not have seen through their haze of ignorance was the horror that puddle felt as I beat it at its own game. Nor would they have seen the satisfaction and glory radiating from my face as I sloshed onward speedily into the woods (just in case anyone actually had seen).

     Here comes the genius of my design- now my feet were soaked and freezing, my left sock had found its way half way down my foot, and blisters immediately began to form as the soggy fabric of the ancient socks I was wearing steadily removed the skin from my arches. Resistance training! I had just begun my run and I decided to add weight, pain, and frustration to the effort! Fast forward half way through the run: I’m soaked and still a pro. I think to myself, if I make it all the way through this run, I am going to feel so good! …. If I make it all the way through this run, I’ll have to match this every time from now on… and if it’s nice out I’ll have to at least half it again. Stopping sounded like a good idea at this point… alas I pressed on, and succeeded.

     The next day, it was colder, snowing, and I had an eyelash in my eye from the start of it, but I was determined to run regardless. Unfortunately, while searching for something I may or may not have been searching for in my bed, I succumbed to a 5-hour coma. Dreadful, I know, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. Tomorrow it’s supposed to be much warmer, and sunny. While I’m out there running on dry ground, suffering through the sun on my face, and not having to wear extra warm clothes, I will sincerely regret not having made it out today.