Your mom's a day of rest.

A good friend shared this with me yesterday amidst a forsaken afternoon fueled by a "cross-training" block on my calendar and elliptical anxiety (will there be one, will I be flanked by the dreaded heavy-breathing-out-of-shape grunters on either side, will this feel like a workout or a warm-up), and I thought it was worth paying forward to you:

"Running has an uncanny ability to mellow the soul, to take the edge off hard feelings, and put things back into healthy perspective."  (Runner's World, March 2011 - for other loyalist subscribers).

By the time I read this last night I'd discovered that no one goes to the gym on a Friday night (a solid plus if you (1) hate gyms and (2) hate the "January" rush at gyms more than you hate the actual gym) and the elliptical is just not going to cut it in the "mellow the soul" department.

After a less-than workout last night followed by mandatory-rest-Saturday (I swore on something sacred under the scary watchful eye of my physical therapist that I would adhere to this ridiculously slow-to-progress and well-rounded-to-the-point-of-delerium running program up to and through the Broad Street Run) this message hits: home, me, all of the angst and then some.

I started running because nothing would take the edge off.  I kept running because, once I started, I recognized myself again.  Suddenly I was there, staring back at me in the mirror, a little more flush in my cheeks, perhaps, and presumably where I'd always been; not so hidden anymore.  Running gave me back a drive I'd been missing and a confidence that was buried years prior.  I had a thing, all my own, to work on, with and through with no one else to lean on but me.  In that, there was a peaceful balance.

When I had to stop running, few people understood the loss and less people than those few were willing to stick around and shake me out of it.  Now that I'm back, I suppose you could say I'm hyper-sensative to my edge, how un-mellow my soul may become and the complete fucked up perspective I bring at times.  It comes from an "I can't ever go back there again" attitude and not an excuse for bad behavior.

So, on this rest day, let's just say, I'm regretting my sacred promise, counting the hours until 8AM tomorrow morning when I can run and that I'm sorry...for the edge.  Sometimes.