Running In The Church

I pulled the speed jump rope out of my gym back this morning when I got to Rogers Park Baptist Church.  But then I thought that I really didn't want to jump rope.  Both knees were bothering me, the right one more than the left.  But I had to do something to get my heart rate up.  "Why not jog?" I thought.

My personal training timer is always set to three-minute rounds just like in the gym at Loyola Park.  I thought I was going to have to stop to catch my breath as I ran around the church gym, but I didn't have to do that.   My knees were still tender, but the pain was not unbearable.  After a second round of jogging, I figured I could go for a third.  "If I do four, 15 minutes will have gone by.  Fifteen minutes is a mile," I thought.  When the end of the forth round came, I was feeling okay.  My stamina seems to be slowly going up.

I was smelling like a big dog, too.  On Thursdays, I just brush my teeth, put on the clothes I'll workout in, grab my gym bag and go straight to church.  I bring a change of clothes to put on after I take a shower upstairs.  When Pastor Roger came into the gym briefly to check on the tables that will be needed for a potluck this upcoming Sunday, I was hoping he wouldn't get too close to me to pick up the scent. 

There are no mirrors in the gym, so I can't accurately check my form while I'm shadow boxing.  I had a half a mind to shadow box in the mirror that's in the choir room, but I thought against it.  There's not really enough room to move around, and I didn't want to transport the radio back and forth. 

I just noticed today that the boombox has a tape player on it. . .another example of how slow I can be on the uptake sometimes.  I had been playing a tape on the way to church, so I took it out of my Walkman (yes, I still have one of those) and popped it into the boombox.  I was in the middle of jogging when the song, "I'm A Ho" by Whodini, a popular 1980's rap group came on.  "Whoops!  Can't play that in church!" I thought.  The round ended a few seconds into the song, and I quickly fast-forwarded the tape to something else. 

Sometimes it feels that my regular exercise is getting easier.  Or maybe that's something I just tell myself to keep doing it.  After all, it's not always a matter of wanting to do it, or even feeling like doing it most of the time.  It's under the category of needing to do it, and not just because of possible fights on my horizon.  I have health conditions that are helped greatly because of regular exercise. 

It also helps that I love boxing, and often imagine myself beating down an opponent while I shadow box.