It Feels Like a Movie

I finish a run and on the run I went from feeling pain down my left thigh, tedium, tiredness and the urge to stop to feeling appreciation for my surroundings, thinking of the long walks I must take along this harbour, wondering which café or pub would be best to visit with a newly acquainted friend, a family member, a lover I have yet to pin down. I remember this feeling, it echo’s after I stop running every time but I can never recall it enough at the start to find motivation anything other then lacking. Every day is the same internal battles as I talk myself in and out of doing exercise. As I look at my thighs, my stomach in the mirror and wonder if they can hold out for one more day of inactivity. As I test the ongoing strain that grips my leg, and has done for the last two months, as I put on my support, and my headphones and my song choices, and should I listen to a podcast instead? Every time I step out the door with my keys in my left hand my iphone in my right I am filled with dread, the anticipation of the pain and the removal of breath and the hill two miles away. Why do I do this to myself? My negative thinking is rooted firmly and securely in my brain and it secures itself weighty and heavy on my back, on my feet. But when I stop, when I have a good run, when the instrumental music keys into pick me up just as I fly past a beautiful reflection on the water, I feel like I am in this film where I finally understand everything, myself, you and what has passed between us. I feel wonderful, I feel smugness at the business men sitting outside with lunch and affinity with the lycra clad couples who I pass in the opposite direction. I feel drunk. I wonder what running whilst drunk would feel like. I suppose it would feel amazing for five minutes then nauseating for the rest. Very nauseating.