I think I’ve made it pretty obvious throughout this blog that I LOVE exercise. I enjoy fitness. I like lifting weights. I even like cardio. I LOVE the idea of signing up for races and collecting 5K t-shirts, moving on to harder races, and someday, maybe even claiming the title of Marathoner.

Please note – I love the IDEA.

The actual running itself?

Hate it. I hate it with the blue hot fiery hate of a superhot blue star.

I’ve tried and I’ve tried and I’ve tried. I’ve seen what, from my perspective, seems like the vast majority of fitness bloggers take up running, discover they love it, and then run races all the time. I’m jealous.

This is what my experience looks like.

I start off. I manage. When I’m doing runs shorter than five minutes in duration, I even find myself enjoying it. At least a little. I look forward to the day when I can sign up for a 5K and just go run it without having to worry about EVERYTHING. But then… it starts to suck. I find that it takes recovery time after a workout. I hobble the next morning. My knees ache. And then… just like that… running sucks.

And I stop.

I’ve done this at least six times now. Maybe more.

Will I do it again? Probably. In fact, my big decision (ever closer, I promise) may require it, albeit indirectly.

This time, I am going to wait. I’m doing great with my weight loss at the moment (I look forward to sharing a big loss in December!) but I really do believe that I need to weight significantly less for running to be safe for me.

I don’t know how long I will wait, but it’ll probably be a while. I definitely do not see myself trying to run until I am below 300 pounds. My body just can’t handle the stress and strain.

Frankly, if exercise is not enjoyable and does not improve the immediate quality of my life, then I am not going to do it. I’m not writing running off forever. I’m just writing it off for now.

Right now, I’m getting my cardio in in a few different ways. For one, I have my Wii. It’s actually a surprising way to get your body moving. I go for surprisingly strenuous walks that don’t hurt my joints but definitely get me sweating and my heart rate up. And of course, I lift weights.

I want to be physically active. At some point when my financial situation is better (not that it’s awful at the moment, but we still have some minor credit card debt and some major student loans to pay off), I plan to sign up for taekwondo again.

I want to have a family with Tina, and I want to be physically active. Notice I didn’t say thin. Frankly, yes, I want to be thin and fit, but the fact also remains, even if I somehow can never change the way my body looks, I plan to keep exercising because it makes me feel good.

When I was overwhelmed with work earlier this semester, I ended up going about two weeks without getting any real good workouts in. Working fourteen hour days can just kind of do that to you. I didn’t feel good. I felt lethargic. I felt even bigger than I was. I just felt run down. I need to be physically active so that I have that wonderful endorphin rush and my heart doesn’t feel like it’s going to explode if the elevator is broken.

Even more than that, I need to be physically strong because what I have planned is going to require it. I need to be strong, fit, and athletic. For a long time.

And if you are guessing, no, I’m not going into the military, either. Stay tuned. I’m normally not one who is a fan of, “Keep reading! I’m not going to share yet!”

But yeah, that is exactly what this is. One hint – you’ll either think it’s cool that I’m actually trying this or slightly insane. Maybe both!

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