Fitness is a journey; not a destination

Their voices were deafening. I heard them every step I took. I tried my best to commiserate and yet I had to look the other way. They begged for relief, and I was torn between giving them what they want, and achieving what I wanted to. They clamoured for relief and I paid them no heed, for my actions are to be ruled only by my backlit watch.

By now, you might have guessed who "they" are - my calves and shins, those beasts that had the audacity to lose their conditioning when I wasn't exercising them well enough, or not at all. These sturdy aides that had seen me through 2 marathons were whining and complaining, asking for some mercy - the same shins that laughed at a half-marathon, the same calves that pooh-poohed a 20-miler. Oh how low the mighty have fallen!

Here I was, three years removed from my last marathon, and it showed. Last night I was running along a little shared path alongside Westminster Highway at a piddly pace. The air was chilly - uncomfortably so. All I had to do was run for 10 minutes and walk for a minute and do this 5 times. I wasn’t halfway into my first rep and my right shin was already killing me. I was severely dehydrated, having had more coffee than water during the day. And of course, coffee sucks the water out of your body.

I thought back to those days where I would do a 10-miler as if it were a walk around the block. The 52:10 10K that I ran without even trying. Why had I slacked off when I was in the prime of fitness? I had lost my job, sure, but didn’t that mean I actually had more time to run than less? Why? Why? Why do I keep falling off after getting to a strong position?

I had an epiphany! I realized that I had been treating fitness as a destination, not like the journey that it is. Like most epiphanies, this one came a tad too late. I hope I don’t forget this little lesson. My aching calves and shins aren’t going to allow that. They aren’t very happy about last night and I’ve endured their curses all day long for not having run all this time. They want me to go back to my old ways, but I cannot. I won't.

I am not ever treating "fitness" as something "achieved", a checkmark to be placed and then conveniently forgotten. I am going to treat it as a challenge to be met daily. Three times now, I have slogged to get to where I want to be physically, and then sat back and watched it all go down the drain. Well, not anymore! It is so easy to fall down the fitness ladder, so easy to lose motivation and conditioning. You literally don't have to do anything. And yet, the climb back to where you once where is so hard

If ever you have to keep moving to stand still, this is it. Think of this when you are tempted to bag a run, or skip a workout - it really hurts on the way back!