I'm going to try to ease you into this, but seriously - this is about to get gross. If you know me in person, you may never look at me the same way again after reading this, so if you like thinking I'm a girly girl with no real grossness about her, stop now or forever hold your cookies.
First of all, should you choose to accept this mission codenamed "Running," your skin is going to smell and feel nasty. Of course that's typical of any outdoor cardio sport; you knew that already. But if cardio or outdoor sports are new to you, you may find yourself for the first time stashing deodorant and face wipes somewhere you can get to them immediately after a run, on the off chance you have to go to the grocery and run into someone you know on the way home. Your skin will feel salty and oily until you shower, and that shower can't come soon enough.
If any of your joints or muscles are bad, you're going to have to strap or tape up to keep moving. And you're not going to look or feel graceful with straps around your knees, occasionally pricking you with velcro and constantly causing a sweaty itch against the felt or glue.
Your mouth may get all dry while you run, and you may feel like you're foaming at the mouth and have to figure out a nonchalant way to spit into the weeds every few hundred feet, pulling up the bottom of your shirt to wipe your mouth. The same feeling might happen in your throat, and then you're going to try to cough while continuing to run, and try not to let your hacking interrupt your breathing or your pace.
You're also going to want to wear sunglasses, even after dark, and it will have nothing to do with the Corey Hart song (which is good, because your neck could snap from all that head bobbing). If your eyes don't get dry from the breeze, they may stay wet enough to allow gnats to stick in them. Then again, it almost feels like a running rite of passage to have to stop running, pull out your barely-metallic cell phone, and use it to get a gnat out of the inside corner of your eye.
Oh yeah.
And then - and this is the part where it really gets lovely - your nose may start to run. And you won't have tissues. And you'll find yourself looking around in front of and behind you to see if anyone is about to witness what you're about to do.
If you have any 12-year-old boys in the family or down the street (or girls, if any of your relatives or neighbors are tomboys like I was), you may already have had the pleasure of hearing about or witnessing what I lovingly refer to as a "snot rocket." And when you're running, with no tissues besides your shirt - and God knows you can't use that, since it's already covered in drool anyway - it's just easiest to make sure you're not being witnessed, keep step, raise one finger to close a nostril, and blow out the other side into the bushes.
It's kind of liberating, honestly. And since this blog is about encouraging running, if this particular post hasn't completely turned you off to the idea, maybe spin it in your own head that running is a chance for you to hit the trail, be alone, and not be judged. Because the man and woman on bikes coming toward you are only going to be able to see you for about 18 seconds, and then they're just gone.
Get out there!
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