Continuing Freedom

A lot of times I'm afraid to blog because I feel like my thoughts are incomplete or unimportant. Perhaps sometimes they are both. Today, though, I'll temporarily set fear aside for a short anecdote.

I'm training for a marathon. By training, I mean, I'm running double digit long runs every weekend, attempting to run a mediumish long run during the week, and when I don't feel 90 year olds, I try to pick up the pace on my short runs around the local high school. I call it training, but its a sort of sorry attempt at that. Regardless, I'm running and I love running.

Realizing genetics has given me less than amazing muscle tone, I've been trying to incorporate more strength training into my regimen. So, yesterday, as my roommate and I watched Matilda (yep, the movie most of us haven't seen since we were 5), I squatted and lunged, pushed up, and dipped my triceps until I felt shaky. Today, I did a similar workout with my tennis kids to commence practice. A ten mile Sunday run, two strength training programs, and a tennis practice later, my body hurt to say the least. Nonetheless, the nearby track begged me to use it and my, previously reluctant to speed work, body conceded quickly. As the last tennis kids slothed out of practice, I threw on a sweater and jogged a mile and half warm up that led me to a bare track at the rear of my school.

Immediately the dreaded days of high school track workouts flooded my memory. My insecurities about quickly circling the track seemed to weigh heavy in my worn shoes. Despite my self-doubt, I started running. First an 800. Then a 400 and a 200. I wish I could say the wind took me over the track like a gazelle, but that certainly wasn't the case. In fact, anyone who saw me probably thought, "Oh, that poor teacher, trying so hard to be like the kids with limber legs." I knew I must have looked snail like trotting around the track, but I didn't mind it. With each stride, I felt free, I felt empowered, I felt strong.

As I finished my first set of 8, 4, 2s I mentally prepared to run back up the track ladder (2, 4, 8). Perhaps it was the book I'm reading about running or my desire for change that led me to do what I did next...

I took my shoes off. I took my socks off. It was my bare feet and the earthy red track.

I ran.

At first, I worried that I might cut the soles of my feet open, but as my stride and the track conversed ever so evenly, I just ran.

Running barefoot wasn't amazing triumphant to me nor was it an undeniably blissful experience. It was, though, natural. Naturally simplistic. Naturally thoughtless. Naturally freeing.

I like freeing.