My Mistress

The Other Woman

She was familiar, easily available, and very desirable.  I ran to her; no, not at first.  At first I walked to her, then I walked faster, then I ran slowly and for short bursts.  One day I ran the whole 30 minutes to her house.  Today, I run to her, around her, and from her.  She has given me great comfort; she has listened when nobody else would (and when I didn’t care to tell anyone else); she has held me close, and she gave me love before I gave her anything.  I love her, and cannot ever imagine a day without her.  This passion with her, this love, it is beautiful, it is healing, it is all I ever want or need. 
My mistress is called by many names, but today most of us call her Running.  I am passionate about Running like I have been passionate about few things in my life.  Today I read, watch videos, and generally obsess about all things Running.  I think about Running when I’m not running; I dream about Running.  I am compelled to do things I would have never have done before to become a better runner.  I tolerate embrace cross-training; I do speed work on a treadmill; I talk to people I don’t know; I run with people I don’t know, sometimes whole groups of people.  As a introvert recluse, this is a big deal. I constantly go out of my comfort zone all in the name of Running.  I want more…passion. 

Why should I be a one passion man?  

Today it occurred to me that I started out running so easily, with so little expectation, and today my life nearly revolves around running – so why can’t I grow new passions by first making them habits?
This year I have resolved to learn to write code; I don’t know that I’ll be good at it and I’m not even sure it will enrich my life that much, but I know that I want to try it.  When I started running, my goal was to run a total of 10 minutes for every 30 minute exercise session.  So I would run 1 minute, and walk 2 minutes, and when I kept this up for 30 minutes, I would have met my goal.  Before that, I walked around the neighborhood for 30 minutes.  Then I walked faster.  Then one day I literally thought, “I bet I can run.”  
…and I haven’t stopped since.  So how can I apply the lessons from my love affair with running to a new goal?  

Scheduling Passion

I have carved out two 30 minute sessions every week in my calendar to learn how to code.  What I really want to do is buckle down and tackle it 2 hours a day until I’m really good – but that’s not my style.  This week I had to alter my schedule to make the sessions 1 hour long because 30 minutes was just enough time to find a problem I couldn’t solve.  I’ll revisit this schedule again next week.  
Two years ago  I wasn’t a runner, I wasn’t into fitness, and I wasn’t even so fit.  Today I can’t write a simple program.  

Let’s see where this new journey leads me – what do you want to be passionate about?


5 thoughts on “My Mistress”

  1. First off, this blog post title totally sucked me in and in the first paragraph I was reading on the edge of my seat, you are a great writer and I loved this post! You are so right about running and only other runners can totally understand this obsession!

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