Return Requires Work

I like wanting to quit and running anyway.

Hills are torture at 4 am, and it’s so quiet you can hear your breath falter in the cold.

I run anyway.

Not because I’m tough or fit or, God forbid, a runner. Because routine, simple as that. Because effort equals energy.

But no matter how many times I take the hill, I still want to quit. It feels like Everest; my calves burn, my nose runs, and I just want to turn around and go home. Every. Single. Time.

And that’s another reason I run. Because I like wanting to quit and running anyway. Especially when it feels like someone lined my skin with lead and turned up the gravity.

Return requires work.

The kind of work you’d do anyway, for the sake of the work itself and nothing more. That 4 am kind of work, when your breath freezes the instant it hits the air, blackness is your forcefield, and the sound of your lungs is louder than any percussion instrument you’ve ever heard.

The kind of work that only matters to you. The best kind.