When you're out of shape, running makes you feel like total crap. It just feels like it's not good for you. That is, until you start to get into shape. It may take a couple of days when you're younger, it may take a couple of weeks or months or years when you're older.
When it feels bad, it's painful to get exhausted - you can't wait for it to end. When it's good, it feels good to be exhausted and gasping, even though it is still exhausting. Especially on a good day. And that's without the runner's high. Runner's high is a whole nuther thing - a bonus.
I have been through the phase change countless times; I am going through it right now.
When I was young and stupid and didn't know it cost anything to run, I'd be sitting there doing something like homework, and I'd start feeling this primal drive similar to hunger pangs. My body wanted to RUN! RIGHT NOW! QUICK, GET DRESSED DOWN AND LETS HIT IT! I'd go run as hard as I could. Usually over to the football stadium, up and down the bleachers and sprints down the field, broken up with somersaults and push ups. Or I'd go all the way to one of the parks.
Now it's like, you gotta being kidding me. I love nights when I can rationalize staying in and on the couch. Soooo nice. Running up the hill for 10 minutes is the type of thing I did without a single thought as a teenager. It was a small drop in the ol' bucket of workouts and sports. Now, it is something that I try to get out of but always am glad when I did it. Note the tense of the word 'did.'
However, I am pleased to report that I am now beginning to experience Muscle Urge again. It started today, pretty much. I am getting back in shape to the point where my body feels like one unit instead of a system of organs and bones, loosely tied together with painfully stiff and unforgiving sinew. To the point again where it feels good to kick and punch and do a flip. And run fast.
It's more than just in the sinews. It's all through you. It's when you breathe, you breathe deep sometimes, just because your lungs are stretching and enjoying some aftergasms and the feel of fresh air flowing in. Aaaaaaah. Then your legs, just laying there, respond as they fill with extra oxygen and they too say Aaaaaah. This wakes up your shoulders and chest and then your abs. Aaaaah.
I was driving my little red buggy (named Steve) this morning and my trunk muscles and my shoulders and my forearms and my legs were asking to go outside and increase some fast entropy. Muscle Urge folks.
Get some.
