Top of the world

I can't run to save my life. That's what I tell people, and for the most part, it's true.

I mean, if I really did have to run to save my life, I'm sure some untapped reserve of insane adrenaline would present itself and I'd pound it, pell-mell, to get the heck out of there, but really - I can't run.

To illustrate this fact for people who run frequently and snort in a derisive sort of way when I say I can't run ("Everyone can run," they counter), I use the park where I walk as an example: "I can't run a lap around Washington Park." Which gets me a look of pity.

But secretly, I've been harboring a desire to be able to run a lap - one lap - around Washington Park. I would try. I would fail somewhere in the vicinity of the bandshell. Wheezing and reeking of failure, I would finish out my laps in a frustrated power walk. And then I gave it up as a bad idea. "I can't run, and that's that," I told myself. So I quit trying.

Enter the boxing classes.

Jason makes us jump rope and do all sorts of other insane things to get our heartrate up and to get some cardio in with our strength conditioning. (Remember me sitting with my head between my knees? You try jumping and clapping your knees to your hands for three minutes, Tough Stuff.)

The last time I jumped rope was the fourth grade, and I didn't do it then for three minutes straight. Think you're tougher than me? Go ahead - go try it. I'll wait.

See?

So we jump rope for three minutes. Rest for one. Do it all again.

I'm gasping after that - and that's the beginning of our conditioning.

But after a couple weeks, I thought: "If I can jump rope for six minutes, I can jog for six minutes."

So I tried it.

Bandshell. Walk.

Tried it again.

Bandshell. Walk.

Well, for not trying in a long, long time, the bandshell isn't a bad milestone.

Two nights later, my goal was to do the same thing: Reach the bandshell.

But at the bandshell, I was still feeling pretty good and breathing pretty normally. A little further. And a little further. And a little further. And ... pretty soon, I was at the crux of the last leg of that lap, and I felt like Rocky. I was grinning like an idiot, and I probably raised my arms in victory.

I finished the lap ... and still felt pretty good, so I kept going ...

It probably wasn't quite a mile when I finally decided to walk again, but it was my personal Boston Marathon.

It was late, but I had to tell somebody. If someone else had been in the park at that moment, I would have told them. Instead, I told my brother, who was awake studying for his OChem final and who was one of the few people who would understand why this measely little lap was a Mount Everest in my life.

I did it.