I, Runner

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I, Runner

    
"What? You're running?  Patti Liszkay is running?

      So responded my daughter Claire when I told her about this newly acquired activity now incorporated into my daily routine, such as it is these days.

      Not that it should be such a stretch that I've become a a runner, considering that I've been, in my day, a prolific walker,

...gym rat, and yoga aficionado.

     Except that I've always hated running.

     Hiking up steep, rocky inclines?

...or  steep, muddy inclines?

...or across the dusty, gnatty Spanish plain?

     (Where, BTW,  the rain DOESN'T mainly stay. Or at least it didn't when I was there).

    Sure, I've walked all those environments and would again. But run around my nice suburban neighborhood? Or anywhere else, for that matter? Eh, no thanks.
     I think my main problem with running is that it feels too turbulent: too much bouncing, too much jostling, physically and mentally. Jogging jogs my brain; I can't think while I'm running. Which is probably part of the point of running: to take a break from thinking, to clear the mind, a moving meditation. But then I don't like to meditate, either. The truth is, turning off the thinking, while it may be healthy for the mind from time to time, makes me feel antsy. So I fight it, which makes me feel more antsy.                
    Hence - strange as it may seem -  running makes me feel very antsy, which is probably why I've always avoided it.
    Enter COVID-19, and the gym is closed and the yoga classes are gone with the wind.
    Which has left me, along with my fellow gym rats and yogistas, to fend for ourselves.
    One can, of course, do the yoga moves by oneself in one's living room. But getting the aerobics in poses a bit more of a challenge. Still, it was a challenge I felt compelled to take up, for more of a reason than a fondness for aerobics.

  A few years ago my ophthalmologist informed me that the pressure in my eyes was on the rise,

...and that I was a few points away from glaucoma. A pressure reading of 22 meant glaucoma; my reading was at 19. Dismayed, I asked the doctor if there was anything I could do to bring down my glaucoma score. She recommended half an hour of daily aerobic exercise, anything that caused the blood to pump through the body including the blood the vessels in the eyes, which would help keep the vessels open. Or something like that. The doctor warned that exercise likely wouldn't bring my score way down, say, to a 12, but might lower it a few precious points.
       And so I started religiously using the elliptical and other machines at the gym. And behold, within a year my eye pressure number had gone down to a 17.  And so ever after I've made the effort to get the blood pumping daily.
      But now, with the gym closed, I had to find a new modus operandi. Find a workout video and bounce around the family room in front of the TV? Run up and down the steps?  I considered both those options. Then I decided to give running around outside another try. Perhaps there was the added incentive that running would also give me a reason to leave the house.
     I've been running for about two weeks now. In the morning I roll out of bed, into my running clothes, and out of the house before I change my mind and go fix myself some breakfast instead.
      The first few days I walked a lot and ran a little. Now I'm starting to run more and walk less. 
       "Do you hate it?" Claire asked me just today.
       Well, no, surprisingly, this try around I don't. But I also don't love it.  
       Still, I do stop every now and then to take a picture of the neighborhood in the early morning light.

        A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.