What's your Where?

The first step is the hardest...

The first step of a run is the hardest to take.  You give yourself a thousand excuses about why today isn't your day.  It's too hot, too cold, too rainy, your knees hurt, you have a meeting to prep for.

What gets me out of the driveway?

I run the southwest corridor, cut through Bussey Brook meadow, and climb Watchtower Hill in the arboretum.  I cut through a maze of paths to climb Peter's Hill.  I know the names of these places, I know the trails, I know which paths to avoid when it rains, I know where the high school kid's congregate in the summer to smoke pot.

Or maybe I head east; Savin Hill, cross Morrissey Blvd and run the Umass/Boston loop.  If the tide is high enough I'll jump off the wooden dock across from the JFK museum (pic) and cool off mid run.  Maybe I go long, extend the effort to Castle Island and then home via Southie, or maybe I just loop back home.

This is what gets me out the door: Visiting my city.  It's like checking in with old friends.  If I don't run the Charles River between Arsenal street and Elliot Bridge for a few months I miss it.  I watch certain neighborhoods grow up before my eyes (Hello Brookline avenue/Fenway).  I watch the graffiti get updated in others (BU Bridge I'm looking at you).  Some remain defiantly the same (Jamaica Pond to Olmsted Park) and I remember a particularly good run; or when I walked there with the Wife and she decided we had to live nearby (mission accomplished-we moved 2 months later).

Where you work out matters.  Your where inspires you to get out the door, go a little farther, stay a bit longer.

I can motivate to get out the door and run someplace uninspiring, but it gets tiresome.  Just a work out.  Breath and movement.  

But If you can attach an intention, a deeper meaning, to the mundanity of the breath and movement you're not working out anymore.  Sometime the where brings it out of you.

I write that sentence and remember running under towering pines lining Oak street during high school.  I'm training to win my league championship.  It's been driving rain for the last hour.  The rain stops; the temperature dives 10 degrees colder in an instant.  The road ices, as do the pine trees.  They sparkle in a way I can't forget 26 years later.  It's mile 10 of 10.  My soaked cotton sweatshirt (it was the '90's) freezes solid but I feel like I can run forever.  

When I get home the sweatshirt won't come off.  It's frozen solid. I have to break my way out.  My skin is red, rashed, chafed; bleeding in spots.  

Sounds terrible.  And yet.

Let's take it indoors.  I'm teaching heated yoga on Temple street.  It's dusk; lightly snowing.  The neon signs on Cambridge street mingle with falling snow.  I'm sweating.  'Feel it All Around' by Washed Out pulses from the stereo.  I'm trying to push the students deeper; into the poses; into themselves.  They're definitely breathing, definitely moving.   The snow, the light, the music wash over us.  

Do they feeling it?  Are they on Oak street with me?  Is this more than a workout?

That night's never far from mind as we build out Train.  We've worked so many hours in box gyms that going there to work out felt like going to school on Saturday.  We were committing to spend thousands of hours in this space.   We want to build a church.  A place you come to move, and breathe, and sweat; but if you come with intention...

Maybe it Transcends.

Then it happens.

I'm downstairs at Train.

It's 7:45 am and Ben Klein is 90 seconds into a hellish 2 minute all out jump rope interval.  Sweat pours from his brow.  The stereo is blasting deep 70's disco cuts like 'It feels like I'm in Love' by Kelly Marie or 'Do You Wanna Funk' by Sylvester.  Niche tunes, but tunes that Ben chose, tunes that chase him through his next pain barrier.  

The space is ours.  We're as loud as we please.  Truly private training.

'10 seconds to go.' I warn him.

'3 minutes,' he shouts, adding an extra minute.  His eyes close, his forehead knots.

Ben's on Oak street with me.  This is more than a workout.

Church is in session.  You're never more alive than Ben is right here.

And all I can think is you can't get this in a box gym.