Working It Out, With Working Out.

With everything I go through, I find a way to relate it to another. To make it more manageable. More of something that can be done. I try to watch the game, and play the game.

With my latest endevor, it has become a work out video. Everything that has been said- I have a work out that corelates to what is going on. Whether it makes it more hopeful, or simply puts things into a perspective that tells me to walk away.

The first work out metaphor that came about was bench pressing. I said that, when you bench press too much, too fast, it hurts. There is a major discomfort. But when you stop... there is comfort. There is a sense of relief. This sense of relief however has absolutely NOTHING to do with the act of bench pressing. Bench pressing is still a good, important part of your work out. You possibly may need to do it at a lower weight, and slower. But you still need to bench press.

That was my sense of hope.

However, tonight, the second round of working out came about. We however are not weight training now... we are simply doing cardio now. Who knew comparing a late night jog to a part of life could have me up at 12:30 blogging.

When you run, there is a sense of discomfort. (I don't know about anyone else, but rarely am I ever COMFORTABLE in working out. But as put in "LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE".... it's in the discomfort that we grow. Or as Elder Uchtdorf put it- It's after our pain, or adversity, that we get our "Happily Ever After") Anyway- that was a big side track. Back to the story. Running. You're Running. Your chest starts to hurt. Your heart is pounding. Your lungs just can't seem to fill up with all the air that you feel you need. You try to puff out your chest and breath deep but you can't. Most of the time... if you run through this... You'll be fine. Eventually your heart will continue to beat hard, but it doesn't hurt. And your lungs will stop ceasing and will begin to fill with the crisp air it so desperately needs.

But- when you don't run through it. When you feel like you simply CAN NOT continue... you convince yourself that "if I just simply walk for a minute, allow my lungs to calm, allow my heart to slow, I will be fine." So thats when it happens. Your steps get loud and heavy, your arms moving dramatically as you slow to a stop. You put your hands on your waist and you take a gasp in. You know that if you don't continue moving, you'll get a side ache, so you keep walking forward. After your body has returned to a COMFORTABLE state, you say to yourself "at the end of this song" or "when I reach the lamp post" "I will begin to run again." You start to run again. But you can't quite get back into it. Your feet feel heavy. Your knees are locking up. Your hips aren't seeming to find the rhythm that they had before. You think in your head "Why didn't I just keep going?" The new found discomfort wins, you slow to a stop, turn around, and walk home. Frustrated that you missed out on a run that you didn't need to. You just stopped because something was uncomfortable, but then when you tried to get back into it... other things fell apart.

So that's where I'm at. I feel as if even if we began to run again, because... running is good, and we know it. It may have reached a point where starting again, the knees will lock, the feet will be heavy. If you stop once because of fear, pain, discomfort... why wouldn't you stop with the next set of discomforts, that are PROMISED to come, if for no other reason then you stopped jogging. Every jog that has ever ended because my lungs hurt... I walk home upset that I didn't just... try to keep going. No matter how painful it got I should have kept going. Because... I would have been fine....