The Dreaded Wall

I dislike running. This had always been my view of it. Running for the sake of it just had never made much sense to me. I believed there were so many other things that would be more beneficial to improve my cardio. Skipping and swimming were the only other things that I considered more helpful. Swimming because of the freedom of movement and the feeling of water surrounding my skin. Skipping for the simple fact that I did not need to move other than keep bouncing. So now I have made it a priority to run once a week.

I had looked up so many articles and stories of why running was a terrible thing to do. Being that I was also quite lazy to actually spend time on my health also kept me from starting. The goals I had as I grew up kept changing making as well. Working towards a career as a chef had taken up most of my energy. The long hours, late nights and stressful moments had really taken their toll. Once I started working in kitchens there was less time to focus on my own health. More and more, I fell away from sports and fitness. My health took quite a beating from the large amounts of alcohol I was consuming every night. Everything had just kept contributing to a loss of happiness. What had finally gotten me out of this was Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

It was this that had gotten me to reconsider what I was working towards. It was through the hard training and the exhaustion that I felt accomplished. More so than I had ever felt before. Muay Thai Kickboxing came next. It was a different sensation and exhaustion from Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Forcing your body to move so you wouldn't get caught by a punch. Breathing correctly so that I had the energy to continue to defend myself from getting submitted. It made more sense to me to look into how to break through those moments of exhaustion. When you dig inside yourself to find something, anything that keeps you going. I had missed that. Losing my position at my third restaurant did not seem like a big deal anymore. All I knew was that I wanted to keep training. I wanted to find that thing inside me over and over again.

The wall, as runners would know it, was the moment I looked for. When your entire body is screaming to stop, to give up and to be complacent. Then continue anyway because that is what you desire. There are not too many moments in daily life where you are put in this position. It is in these moments, of hitting that wall, that we find out more about ourselves. As I run my muscles ache, my breath becomes laboured, sweat rolls into my eyes causing a sting. Everything in my body is telling me to stop. Yet, it isn't what I want. I continue to put those thoughts behind me. They only keep me from the goal. It was this that took me so long to understand. Every moment of exhaustion during training is just another wall to work through. They are easier to find in sports. That does not mean they don't exist in other aspects of our lives.