HUMOR
The Benefits Of Running Yourself To Death
The run positive movement
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I stopped running a few years ago. Not in the figurative sense. I’ll never stop running from my past. It’s the only way I can achieve enough distance from it to see it clearly enough to laugh at it.
I mean I quit running for exercise. I was convinced it would wear out my legs, eroding them down to two sexy flagella, good at waving around to attract my mate, but useless for mobility.
However, a serious runner recently told me, “Yuck, no. Flagella? Dude, running is something you can do for life.”
“Really?” I said.
“Really,” he said.
That’s when I believed him. I find it’s the easiest to believe in things I want to believe in.
Why do I want to believe in running again?
Because I’m tired of my exercise bike. I’ve fallen out of love with it. Whenever I look at it, all I see is it standing among trash on the side of the road wearing a paper loincloth that says “Free” in my handwriting. I feel guilty seeing it that way, but I just do.
And I miss nature. Not ticks or poison ivy or too much wind or the peopled parts of Appalachia or the southwest in the art and fantasies of retired white people or anywhere with quicksand but all the rest of nature.
I fact checked my serious runner friend, looking up “running for life.” The computer showed me many images of sexy silver folk running and smiling. Yes, I’m aware that some people look like they’re smiling when they’re actually screaming, but I trusted the photographs even without hearing them. That’s how much I wanted to believe.
