Chronicles of a Late Bloomer

It’s not uncommon for me to dream about running. In the dreams, of course, it always feels as effortless as runners make it look. Usually, the running constitutes only a small portion of the dream. I am running to get somewhere, or running away from something. Often I stop running because my dream self realizes, “Oh wait. I’m fat. I can’t run.”

Last night I had a dream that featured running and a few new developments. First, I was running in a race. Second, I deliberately ran slowly (though it still felt effortless) because I didn’t want to push myself too fast or too far. Thirdly, I stayed asleep until the sweet, sweet ending — that is, in my dream, I finished the race. I crossed the finish line. Maybe for the first time ever. And, sure, it was just a dream… but it was awesome.

It reminded me of a passage from John Bingham’s excellent book, The Courage to Start:

… You cannot pretend to be a runner, you actually have to run. In the end, being a runner is no more complicated than that. To be a runner, you simply have to run. It’s not enough to dream about being a runner. It’s not enough to plan on being a runner. Sooner or later, you have to run. And if you run, you are a runner.

I’ve been thinking about quitting the far-away ghetto gym (where I’m only allowed to enter on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and weekends) and instead join the YMCA that is about 5 blocks from my house and 2 doors down from work.

I went there yesterday and the gym facilities are nothing fancy. There is no mirror wall and no overhead hiphop music thumping away competitively. I’ll be able to hear my books on tape or Aerosmith or Kelly Clarkson or whatever embarrassing music I feel like listening to.

It’s a bit of a rougher crowd, which is good. And they offer a series of 12-week programs which are monitored by their staff and tailored and everything. That sounds great.

Also they have this system called Fitlinxx which supposedly tracks all of your exercises and remembers your settings. I’m a gadget geek, so this really appeals to me. You can access your stuff from the internet too, apparently. And, at the YMCA in question, you can earn t-shirts by sticking with it! Not that they would fit me at this point, but still.

It sounds like common sense to think that I’ll do better at a place that’s literally between my house and work than a place that is all the way over in the boons, involves 20-minutes of parking detail, and won’t welcome me on a Monday afternoon if that’s when I feel like working out.

It’s probably obvious, but every post before this point was uploaded from a previous journal where I chronicled my first weight-loss experience. In 2004, I joined Weight Watchers and quickly lost almost 40 pounds. Then, I freaked out and gave up. This post is a placeholder to divide then from now, but I wanted to include them because so many of the thoughts and feelings are the same.