Running round the WiiFit island feels good in my body, but sometimes gets a bit boring in my mind.
So while I'm running sometimes I take the opportunity for pray for friends who need the Lord’s help especially just now. Sometimes I mull things over, think through a piece of writing I need to do, or consider how to approach a section of editorial work for someone else’s book.
And if all else fails, I look at the track on the screen and listen to my feet padding along, and remind myself where I’m running to and what I’m running away from.
Running away from fluid retention… from obesity… from diabetes… from fibromyalgia… from worsening varicose veins… from depression… from flab (quick! faster!)… from fatigue… from osteoporosis… from muscle loss…
Running towards vascular health… mental alertness… cheerfulness… strength… muscle tone… lymphatic health… bone health… extended independence in old age…
Over breakfast ths morning I sat chatting with Fi my youngest daughter about muscles – ‘I love muscles,’ she said: ‘they’re amazing!’
Specifically, we were thinking about the bag/net/cradle of muscle that wraps around the pelvis – abdomen, perineum, lower back muscles – creating a core of strength and stability that protects against getting bad backs, prolapses and incontinence, and is the source of strength for moving and lifting. The spine is a willowy thing, designed for bending and flexing, not for carrying loads. When the muscles that weave around it are allowed to atrophy, the spine and skeleton are asked to perform tasks God never meant them for, and they go wonky and out of kilter – and then the body starts screaming ‘Uh oh! Life-you-are-doing-it-wrong alert! Alert! Alert!’
The Badger says the thing with exercise that people often forget to mention is the time lag. From when you start to where it begins to feel good is about a fortnight. He thinks if more people knew that, fewer people would give up.
I love the loose, easy feeling of running. I love the sound of my feet on the floor like an African drummer’s bush message of health and cheerfulness. I love it that I can see bones in my feet, that I haven’t seen for years because of fluid retention. I love it that, because of the way I eat and the running, all the awful pain I though I was stuck with forever has gone – the fibromyalgia pain in my legs, the chest pains, the excruciating acid reflux, the sore, swollen tongue (how long have you got?) Gone, gone, gone. Not to mention the tonsilloleths and the candida and the awful fatigue that felt like my life draining away. Gone. I ran away from them and ate them away.
I feel so well these days. Plant-based, whole-food eating. Running running running. I feel good. The Badger did point out to me that it’s much harder running actually outside in the streets and the park instead of padding along an off-cut of carpet. Stored away for future reference, when my body gets nifty and speedy and strong :0)