RUN! Don't walk!

About four years ago, I was hitting the gym on my college campus most days of the week, determined to train for Bloomsday, a 12k race in Spokane, Washington. I was first beginning the lengthy process of decreasing and eliminating the massively high doses of medications doctors had prescribed to me under hopefully good intentions but overall poor judgment. The process was arduous at best and came to a screeching halt when my body just couldn't take it anymore--the pain, the increasingly overwhelming fatigue of my still-yet-to-be discovered sleep disorder... I stepped off the treadmill and decided to classify myself into the category of People Who Only Run When They, G-d Forbid, Are Being Chased.

In a sense, I was being chased--by the ticking time bomb that is deteriorating health. Running back then felt very much as though I were trying to escape that pending reality. As much as I felt the aspects of my life that were hard or impossible to control were all external, the environment that was becoming hardest to maintain and exist in was my own physical body--very internal. No matter!  Even in my poorest of health and especially as I began to finally, with G-d's help approach wellness, I found other ways to remain active. I found a love and passion for Yoga, for cycling, for swimming and water based activities and eventually, learned to love other forms of cardio, strength and resistance training. Actively and intentionally moving my body helped me regain the strength, balance and function lost in the midst of severe neurological symptoms. Finally, with the help of a trainer and my own focus and determination, I was as much in control of my active movement as I was of my desired stillness.

And then there is the issue of weight--which I have actively avoided discussing on this forum. I was, growing up, always very underweight. I did not even surpass 100lbs until I was nearly a senior in high school. The ill-suited medication regimen I swallowed like a cocktail for over 12 years did quite a number on my body in more ways than one. It didn't matter if I exercised, ate well or entirely the opposite. Despite being told it was not the medications but rather poor choices leading to this weight gain, as soon as I cleaned a few of those culprits out of my system, without actively trying, I dropped 40lbs like a hot potato. It was a lot of weight to lose in a very short amount of time--less than six months. Right around the time I was finally diagnosed with my sleep disorder and began treatment, the pounds started to creep on again. Now I was eating well and working out, but the stress of adrenaline still pumping through my body each night and the lack of restorative sleep took its toll. I decided to continue going to the gym, continue eating well and let go of any further expectations. I worked with the trainer to shift my weight proportions into higher lean muscle mass and lower body fat and did so successfully. Still, by the time I left Washington at the end of July, I'd only actually lost 5 pounds. To my utter astonishment, since moving to New York in mid-August, I've lost over 20 more. This time, however, I sense that my body is finally just letting go and settling into its natural state rather than reacting in shock to being overloaded. (How is that a metaphor for life?!)

And before this past Shabbos, with a new pair of sneakers, I ran my first mile in over four years. I hadn't planned to. I am in Massachusetts visiting family and my father has a small home gym. I'd planned to get in a good long walk and then some Yoga, but a change in Shabbos plans left me with only half an hour to work out. Before I knew what had hit me, I was running--and loving it! And after Shabbos, I hit the treadmill again, this time to run for about two miles. The difference now is like night and day; I am no longer running away from illness, but very much running toward wellness. It is at once exhilarating, exciting and, somehow, calming; healing.

I wish everyone a good week--a week of peace, of wellness and balance. Sometimes we take these things for granted. They come easily, we push the envelope. Sometimes they feel immensely out of reach. We push against that, we draw inward, or give up altogether. They are not far at all; they are states of being that are in fact within and around each of us. And the only difference between a 12k and reaching peace, wellness and balance is that the latter is not a race to the finish; it's all about how you get there. For now, however, I'm going to run, not walk!