Running can be a container for our anger and hurt.
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The Good Men Project Sports asked Why We Run?
In this feature series, we share your answers.
This is contributor Deb’s piece.
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When she found that evidence of his infidelity…His cutting words – I just don’t feel the spark anymore – yes, he’d tried to justified his behaviour – and I don’t want to be married to a woman who is heavier than I am. These words hurt and sliced through the main artery that had held her heart together… the love bled away, sucking the life out of their marriage.
A 72/73kg woman with three children didn’t seem all that heavy, but it depends on the size of the man you’re married to. And he’d been a small man with a bad temper for most of the past 20 years. Enough said!
Her monthly visit to her psychologist, a kind woman in her 60s who had had two failed marriages herself, helped.
It was here where her motivation for running crystallized.
“It’s his face I’m running on, you know…every step I take I’m imagining myself smashing into his face, his stupid smirk, his disapproving look, his angry glare, his constant put downs and control,” she told her this during a session.
“Every step I take is slowly erasing his image, eradicating him from my mind, my body, my whole being. He is gone, gone, and going and I never want to have him back.”
She’s angry today, probably because of that text message. That smirking, smarmy text message that made her lose it again.
I’m gonna show him.
So she turns up the volume and concentrates on her breathing, trying to make the movements strong and sure, a good even pace and so the run continues, with his face under every footstep, smashing it into the ground.
For her, Running is Divorce Therapy.
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For The Good Men Project Sports’ Why We Run feature, we are looking to collect YOUR comments, posts, Tweets, and emails that answer the questions: Why do you run? What are you running from? What are you running towards, if anything?” Please send us your submission via email to myself at [email protected] or via Twitter @michaelkasdan #WhyWeRunGMP and #GMPSports. Submissions can also be made through the below comments section or on our Facebook page.
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#25: Stream of Consciousness <<
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Photo: John Loo/Flickr