I Have Always Been Addicted To Moving..in One Way or Another


So I did my 10-mile run on Saturday. People must think I am nuts to be training for this marathon thing but I am not sure anyone understands how running actually makes me feel.

Ok yes there are the swollen feet and the feeling that for the rest of the day after a long run you just want to lie on the sofa and do nothing. And it hurts. After a certain amount of time your legs begin to feel like Jell-O. My arches hurt from years of dancing and now the pounding they are taking is making them sore. Also, when you run that long the sweat on your body evaporates from the wind and you are left with grainy salt all over your body. Hey it is natural exfoliation!!

But then there are the good things. The incredible high that fills your whole body and whole mind. This feeling of euphoria that lasts all day, It gets your blood going and, hate to say it, but it makes me rather randy.

When I was dancer, and this was in the later years of my dancing obviously not when I was five, I would love my body while I was dancing. The practicing is never attractive. You are sweaty and red. There are scrapes and blisters. There is no makeup and the hair is a mess. But while I was dancing I never felt sexier. I never felt so in tune with my body and how it moved. Now that I don’t dance anymore (except in the comforts of my living room) I needed another way to move my body to get that feeling again.

Enter running. I get that same feeling. So no matter how much it hurts I am now addicted to it. I will never be a professional dancer or compete ever again. But that dancer blood has always been in me. And with that comes the insatiable need to move and to feel my body moving.

Plus, I think it is pointing me in the direction of where I want to go. I am literally running towards a goal I never knew I had. I am not sure I have ever felt better about myself.

My old dance teacher used to say there were two types of people in the world. There were those that listened to music and could see in their minds the movements of the body to go with it. They could actually feel the movement in the music. Whenever I hear a song, no matter what it is or where I am I can still feel that movement and often times (which gets quite embarrassing in my car) I move right along with it. Then there are those that don’t. There are people that are born to dance and even if you stop along the way, dancing is always there. Maybe dancers are just of another species.

And now? Now the music of running is the steady beat that my breathing makes. The sound of my environment around me begins to make music. And, on the days I use my Ipod, running will never stop me from shaking my tush…just a little.