It’s funny how talk of running seems to bring out the guilt in people.
While it can happen anywhere, at any time, this usually has a habit of happening in the lunchroom at work. I don’t know if this is related to people looking at what they’re eating at that moment, or thinking about their habits as a whole; maybe it is simply that the lunchroom is the one place where you can bump into anyone. Anyway, it usually starts with a Future-Runner asking me how far I ran last weekend, or something like that. I’ll answer with the distance of my last long run, then wait. Maybe I am a bit of an instigator, but I always enjoy those moments. It is a bit like handing someone a lit stick of dynamite; everyone stares at it for a moment, then the chaos begins while they try to figure out what to do with it.
First, there is one or more comments of shock. Then, you’d think I walked in there and said “Alright you lazy schlubs! Those of you who haven’t participated in any physical activity today, what is going on?!”
“Well I could never do that, my joints won’t take it.”
“Yeah, but you have to remember, this is Karen and she likes to run.”
“I don’t have time.”
“I would just die.”
“I run errands, does that count?”
One after the other, the excuses fly, and each person agrees with the last, and they all work together to assuage their self-imposed guilt. All I did was give a 3-word answer to a direct question!
The woman who goes to the gym every day doesn’t say anything at all; like me I think she’s secretly amused. I think, like me, she can remember what it was like to be was almost completely sedentary. When someone else did something that seemed amazing, I’d feel the need to figure out how I was different, why I could never be like that.
Anyone who recognizes themselves in the above dialogue, remember, I don’t judge. You crack me up, but I don’t think any less of you. What I can say is that you can be like that. Seriously, if I can, anyone can.
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