it was last Saturday morning. the temperature was hovering around 30° and with Spy leaving for his Europe trip that afternoon, i was in a time crunch. i had to work out before my 10:30 hair appointment. it was the last chance i would have for 2 weeks to go for my morning run on a weekend and i’m really trying with this. really. but it was cold, y’all. and this Southern girl don’t do cold.
trying to catch up on a few things around the house and get him ready for his trip, i was also watching a rapidly closing window of being able to make it to the gym for at least a warmer workout. it would have been so easy to pull an anti-Nike on this sitch and just not do it. but i knew i would be angry at myself the rest of the weekend. and at him for causing this situation in the first place. i mean, damn him for going on a work trip he doesn’t even want to go on and inconveniencing my completely inconsistent and half-hearted workout schedule!
so i put on my big girl pants, a.k.a. running gear. i pitched a fit about not being able to find the awesome gloves i got just for unbearably frigid mornings like this, then pulled my sleeves down over my hands and set out into the cold. the neighborhood streets were still covered in shadows, though the sky gleamed bright blue. i cranked up Buju Banton, hoping a little dancehall would help transport me to a warmer state of mind.
step after step, i hated everything about what i was doing. until somehow, i eventually forgot. outside the neighborhood and into the cemetery, there were no houses to stand in the way of the gorgeous sunshine. and the crisp air slowly became a welcome refresher with each deep breath and passing block. step after step, there eventually was nothing but the next step, the next breath and the next song in my ears.
i made it my 30-ish minutes (it was all the time i really had at that point) and averaged the fastest per-mile pace i have in quite a while. honestly, i think somewhere in my mind i reasoned that if i ran faster, 30 minutes would be over sooner. funny what you can talk yourself into.
by the time i returned home, i was glad i had gone. not just glad, but like overwhelmingly happy. i felt great. invigorated. and i know it’s usually this way. but what felt even more great was that i wasn’t the only person who was a little proud of me. as i raced through the shower and some semblance of sprucing up, Spy looked at me like he does after pretty much every run and told me I’m proud of you for going, sweetheart.
in response to The Daily Post’s prompt today, Proud, that is the last time someone told me they were proud of me.