Cardio is my calm

It always seemed strange to me growing up my mother would tell me if it hadn't been for swimming when I was little she'd of had me on Ritalin. Really. My mother said this to me. She says lots of things to me, nice things, mean things, complimentary things, honest things. I can count on her to give it to me straight, and sometimes the truth hurts.
I never really got what she meant until I was done swimming, and didn't have the luxury/obligation/ to swim everyday twice a day. To ingest chlorine. To soak it in my skin, to live for swimming. To dive into a cold pool day after day, and feel guilty and not quite right if I missed this wonderful/dreadful first shock of that cold water on my mostly naked body.
Where was I going with this? .. ....

Of yes, I didn't get what the woman, (my mother) meant by her very forward, probably true Ritalin comment until I had finished my swimming "career." I found this calm in the water that I took for granted because it was there everyday. The quietness of being underwater is surreal. Because when you come up and there and 40 swimmers in motion the water is not calm, the swim pool deck itself is not a quiet place. But there's a rhythm to it, the constant splashing of water. The breathing, the echoes. Its like a different world co-existing two inches apart. Amazing.

I find this calm more so now when I go to swim, because most of the time I go alone, and when I come up there aren't 40 others keeping the rhythm. As I'm gliding through the water I just feel powerful and strong, and like this is for me. Not for a team or a time or a meet, its just for me. Recently while training for a half marathon ("halfy", as I lovingly refer to it, to close family and friends) I've found a similar calm in running. On days my run has a possibility of getting cancelled due to life, I get stressed and cranky, and kind of mean. I need the run. My body craves it, then hates me for it after, silly body.



I'm out there running for me, and yes it is for a race, but its for me. It calms my soul, it puts perspective into my day, and into my life. I find it funny, in my nerd-ish sort of way, that pounding up and down on pavement would bring a calm to my life, but it does. I love the pounding. I love the rhythm. I love sticking in my ipod and worrying about nothing but running, it clears my mind. Some people have meditation, some religion, some drugs and alcohol, (maybe I shouldn't have put that one right after religion, my mother may have something to say about that one. I wonder if she reads this.)For me, my escape, where I find my calm, my center is in exercise.

To put aside the world, obligations, concerns, worries, etc., for an hour to do something just for me makes a world of difference. It makes me a happier person. It makes me more focused, and more patient. So once in awhile being self fish pays off. So on I'll run, or swim, or plyo it up. Because in the end I'll be calmer, more centered (and have a hot ass, which makes me happy too).