Push the walls. Away.

From the floor of a small ballet studio overlooking Sansom Street, two stories up, she floats effortlessly across mirror-side and says this so quietly and with such conviction, I am struck by both its punch and its pick-up, "Push your walls away."

And so I do:

In a barre pilates class, extended through my potential "X" toward the four corners of that space;

Rising from a deep chair pose, reaching beyond the beams in the old room in the back, with dim light, blocked by a narrow alley and overlapping borders;

From stride one of 15 miles so early on a Saturday that I am alone with the struggle - of grass against frost, geese against wind, emptiness against suffocation and me against the unknown miles; and

From my last mile, finally in time with my breath:

Inhale, you can do this.

Exhale, push the walls away.

Inhale, lengthen my stride with loose hips.

Exhale, move my weight into the momentum.

Inhale, believe in the finish line.

Exhale, channel crossing it.

It is within these rhythmic breaths that I am warm on the coldest winter runs, that I see purpose in movement and find insight to the space between me and my practice. As a Runner, I've learned that I identify the unknown as the walls that hold me down into the known, crushing growth and slowing potential.  My constant breath pushes this thought from my head and this concept from my radar.  It is a workout within any given workout to push my thoughts out beyond the limits I perceive and the pain that often comes with poor conditions.

I push away "cannot," and "what if," fears and the "no fucking way," doubts and "I'm too old," emptiness and anger, anxiety and pain, and disappointment and fatigue.  With every step forward into a run, I hold up the space between my walls, breathe deep, and tighten my grip on gratitude ever so slightly.  It is this way and only this way that I find personal bests still at the end of long races, waiting with open arms, and whispering all the while, "boom."