Day 1: Off to a Rough Start

Today was a good day. It was a really good day. Everything just kind of rolled along nicely.

I watched Baby Mama and Ace Venture: Pet Detective today with my roommate after we ate Taco Bell. I turned in a mid-term that I feel I did pretty decently on. I hung out with friends by the fire on the rooftop terrace at Harding Manor. I handed out candy to a family of zombies.

Running? Running was rough. I got home from Harding Manor a lot later than I had originally planned (which is an entirely separate story and it still makes me angry to think about it), and I wasn’t sure if my roommate was going to run with me. At 11:20 I started out to the gym and got on the elliptical around 11:30 because I didn’t want to run around in the dark all alone. And then, my roommate came in the gym and she was on the treadmill. This was working out nicely until I hit minute EIGHT and a man came to the door telling us that the gym was closed and we needed to leave. So, at about 11:40 my dreams of completing my 30 minute run sort of went out the window. Jaklyn wasn’t dressed for running (and was walking on the treadmill), and I really didn’t want to run alone. Not only that, but I didn’t think I COULD run alone. I was already tired. Who am I? How did I get this way?

So we came back to the apartment.

And here I sit, feeling defeated.

To be honest, I stood on the treadmill for a good five minutes trying to psych myself up for 30 minutes of death. Then I moved to the elliptical when I decided that I couldn’t do the treadmill with all the button pushing and whatnot. And I stood there for a few seconds trying to psych myself up. Psyching myself up didn’t really work. I was still feeling defeated.

This 100 Days of Running? It’s about more than just running. 100 Days of anything having to do with commitment. Someone doesn’t get this commitment thing I keep talking about.

When I said I was doing it because I needed some sort of commitment in my life, he was quick to point out how I’m committed to school, and to my children’s ministry at church, and to the friends I was gathered with around a fire.

He doesn’t get it.

It’s not commitment like that. Those things don’t take strong will-power. Those things are just me doing what I know I’m supposed to do because any decent person would be committed to those things, even on a very surface-y level. Those things don’t seem like commitments. I frequently think of dropping out of school, but I’ve invested too much money into this degree, and I have too many desires to do with that degree. These things don’t seem like commitments because I also WANT to do them. They bring me joy.

 

Right now, running does not bring me joy. Running makes me feel stupid, and incompetent, and unable, and fat. Running does not make me happy. Especially after tonight when I was so set on running the 30 minutes, but then wasn’t able to do it. And by “wasn’t able,” part of that means “quit.”

This commitment is about an end to myself. It’s sort of like an end to my negativity towards myself, and an end to the negativity of those in my past, and an end to the lies Satan feeds me. This running commitment is becoming a spiritual thing where I realize that the Lord really IS my strength, that I CAN do the things I set out to do if I set out to do them with the Lord.

 

I can’t even put my finger on it, really. It’s just a different commitment. It’s different. It’s better.

 

With that being said, how am I going to do this?