Yes, But Does It Need Me?

Could I become a gym girl? I pondered this as I bounced and glided along on the elliptical yesterday morning. I looked around, feeling like an interloper. Most of the machines are complicated, contraptual mysteries, and though I’ve been taught how to lift free weights I am pretty sure I’m too weak for them. I am way too uncoordinated for exercise classes. Not to mention the absolute boredom that strikes whenever I try and do a circuit. I dunno… I am an outdoor runner, with limited time. Time in the gym means less time tearing up the pavement–can I really give even some of that up? But, there may be no option: I may have to temporarily be a gym girl as I rehab from this hammie problem. 

On the ten-minute walk from the gym to my office, no less than six sprightly morning joggers dodged by me. This is notable because I was walking from 47th Street and 6th Avenue to 52nd and Fifth–basically, through Rockefeller Center. It’s so congested–tourists taking photos by the now-dry ice skating rink, walking five abreast towards the Top of the Rock ticket booth, and penned in outside NBC watching the Today Show and waiting to holler for Al. Who would run through this clusterfuck? Nevertheless, these joggers looked happy trotting along towards Central Park through perfect weather (slightly overcast, cool but not cold), and when they ran past me I felt my heart ache. Ever randomly unearth a piece of sentimental detritus–a ticket stub, a scrap of a note, a matchbook–which brought back a flood of memories of a lost love? That resultant wistful melancholy is what I felt, with a little jealously mixed in (seeing said lost love with someone new). Oof! 

I’d forgotten the truth which had slowly built up over the course of years living as first a casual jogger then a serious marathoner: I need running. Come back to me, I thought, I’ll never take you for granted again!  

Yes, I need running for the way it makes me feel (proud, euphoric, tough, athletic, beautiful), for the challenges it presents, for the way it is an essential part of who I want to be and how I want to be perceived. I need running for the plain ole heath benefits, for the mood stabilization, for the community of great people to which it gives me access. 

But does running need me? Not so sure about that one, although it would seem that my running does need Pilates (or some other core-strengthening work) and a realistic marathon schedule (just one a year, perhaps?). For now, I have to be patient and wait out my exile in gym purgatory a little longer. I know once I’m ready to return to running, I’ll be welcomed back with no hard feelings.