Progress

Over the past couple years I've grown an enjoyment of running. I don't love it. At least not yet. But I do enjoy it. This mornings run was no exception. I left the house and started down Hawthorne towards Lake Ellyn. The route is a straight shot with essentially one long hill down and one long hill up. This makes the journey home much more difficult than the run out. Today while headed back towards home after doing a lap around the lake I started thinking back to the first time I ran, or attempted to run, around Lake Ellyn. It wasn't pretty. I could barely make it 60 feet before having to stop to walk.  I also recall rolling my ankle on the then unpaved path around the side closest to the high school. I realize now, that back then, I was trying to run because I needed to exercise. As a broke college student it was the best option that my camp salary could afford. Today I started thinking about progress. I thought about that first attempt around Lake Ellyn where I drove to the lake to start my run, in comparison to today, where I start the run at my front door and end at my front door. I thought about how my view on progress has changed since then. As a college student my view of progress was measured by the scale and by how fast I could run. Both are terrible things to measure progress on. 1. Often times when you're getting stronger the scale doesn't move. 2. Sometimes you can run at a the pace of a snail and that doesn't measure the endurance you've built up to go farther. Also, like any college I had zero inclination or knowledge of what nutrition actually was. So running although for good intentions was being wasted on my college diet of Goldfish, Dr. Pepper, and venti mochas from Starbucks. 

I remember in elementary and middle school receiving progress reports. They would come around midterm to show where my progress was and if there were any areas of challenge, I could take the proper steps to boost my progress before the report cards came out at the end of the semester. When report cards came out not only did they come with a grade for school subjects but many times came with a number that corresponded with a character trait. For example, a teacher might give the number 15, you look at the key and find that 15 stands for hardworking. Or the number 72, trustworthy. These are the things that my parents enjoyed most. Yes, they liked seeing good grades and progress. But they also enjoyed seeing character development. When I think about these progress reports in comparison to my running progress I think about how my character has been built. Since I started running I use to give up and quit after a quarter mile of struggle. I'd say it's too hard and throw in the towel. Essentially most days I'd give up before I even started. If only I had someone giving me a character progress number in those first days of running. It may have been a wake up call that I had my mind in the wrong place. It's not about how fast I run, what the number on the scale is. It's not about what others think of me as I gasp for breathe as I run past them or as they run past me. It's not what others think I look like while I run. It's about me. It's about the progress I've made from not being able to run for 30 seconds before stopping to running 45 minutes without stopping. It's about honoring the one body that I have been given and using it to the best of my ability. It's about how I feel. It's about taking care of me. It's about going at the pace that will stretch me and challenge me. It's not about going faster than others, unless a bear is chasing me, in which case maybe I do want to be faster than the slowest person. ;) 

This coming October, a week before my 28th birthday, I'll be running another 5k. (The Morton Arboretum 5k for anyone who wants to join. I'll also be celebrating one year since I began my fitness journey with Beachbody.) I want to end my 27th year as the healthiest and strongest year yet and I want to start my 28th year in preparation to become my healthiest and strongest year yet. I'm learning to measure progress through non-scale victories. It's not always easy but running has been one of the best ways for me to see how far I've come. I'm not running faster. But I'm running stronger.