Divided Body

 I started to jog again.  It had been a six month hiatus.  In that time I had walked a lot, but I think of running as “me.”  But not all of me agrees.  My mind says, “ I am a runner.  It is who I am.”  But my legs complain when I go out there to run: “What is this you are putting me through?  I am done running.  Go back to eating donuts, cookies, pie and die of diabetes, or cholesterol stuck in your arteries.”  My will says, “I don’t want to run.  You are washed up as a runner.  Read a book. Meditate and get holy.”  My lungs complain when I am running: “This is 8,000 feet!  No oxygen up here.  I am exhausted trying to get some air in and out of me.”  Legs, will power and lungs all are for dumping this running.  My hope is that eventually they will all come together and I will be a runner in fact as well as in my mind.  I try to avoid fantasy too.  Don’t get into dreaming about winning anything.  Just become a runner in fact.