It’s hard not to feel a little impressionable after a day like today.
Sometime between the end of summer and the beginning of fall, I let slip any motivation I had built-up to run on a regular basis. My ten miles a week turned into two nights of Ultimate, which is itself great exercise, but not enough to wrest my metabolism into motion. I’ve also taken full advantage of the student meal plan we’re given as AmeriCorps* volunteers, and a few reminder pounds have shown up unannounced. (Not quite the Freshman 15; call it the Post Graduate 5.) In all of this, my body has made it clear: eat less, or sweat more.
And so, I’ve resolved to start running again. It’s a sort of mini-epiphany, the kind I curiously only have when the weather gets crappy and the number of nice days in a month starts thinning to a handful. But it’s nothing new. My athletic ambition is bi-polar, it seems, and without a working calendar.
But how I came to realize my lapse in running could easily be a case study in Advertising. A book review for Christopher McDougall’s “Born to Run,” which first caught my attention on a library shelf almost a month ago, led me to order the book online this afternoon. A link to an interview with McDougall piqued my interest in long-distance running, and from there I linked to an article on the benefits of running barefoot. I remembered my own tattered running shoes, and rationalized that I should probably buy a new pair if I want to run in earnest. A trip to the shoe store tonight yielded not just a pair of shoes but also two pairs of running shorts (on sale) and some padded Dri-fit socks for good measure. In all, one advertisement on the sidebar of a website netted $84.36 of economic activity. Every ad rep in the country is trying to figure out what it takes to make a lot of people do often what one person does occasionally: Read an advertisement -> spend money.
If nothing more, I contributed $84.36 to the economy, and realized a routine that I shouldn’t have neglected. I guess there’s nothing wrong with feeling a little impressionable.
First run comes bright and early. Time to chase the Post Graduate 5.
