Why is August always such a crazy month? I feel like I'm never organized in August. No matter what's going on in my life. Well, it's the end of the month now so things are starting to come together. Classes start tomorrow and I'm excited to get back into a routine. An essential part of that routine for me is movement. I think my body is trying to tell me something after I gave it an unintentional break from exercise for a couple of weeks in early August. Last night, I was trying to get some work done and I couldn't sit still so I threw on my sweatpants and ran out the door.
I headed down to Garfield Park which is really close to my house but I haven't had time to check it out. It's great for upper body and balance. Lots of bars and ropes to play on. I shared the playground with the little ones who were looking at me like you're too big to play on this. They were running various courses throughout the playground in a don't-touch-the-lava sort of way and I really wanted to join but I felt like that might be creepy so I did my own courses and challenges. My favorite was trying to find as many ways as possible to get across the monkey bars.
When I started tiring out, I headed home. I'm trying to get myself into better running shape, so I ran home stopping only when I saw something I wanted to jump on—bike racks, interesting walls, rails, etc.
Apparently that wasn't enough for my body, because this morning when I was in the middle of an email, I had the sudden urge to move again. My body was itching to get up and jump around. I stopped mid-email, threw on my sweatpants, and ran out the door with nothing but myself and my keys which were conveniently looped into my shoelaces (a trick I learned from my Dad). I ran towards the same park, but noticed there were a lot more people this time so I decided to just go for a parkour run around my neighborhood.
I stopped to do some 180 precisions onto a stone wall and then QM down the wall. Then I ran towards a staircase that looked long enough to be a challenge. I like to follow R's philosophy that stairs are not meant to be walked on unless it's for conditioning purposes. My chosen stair torture for the day was jump up three steps, jump down two. A young man stopped me, box jumps? he asked. Just jumping! I answered.
After the stairs, I started heading back up the road, wondering where it would take me. I found myself back by a metro stop I recognized and looked around me for things to play on while I jogged. I tried to change up my levels as much as I could, jumping on walls and ledges along the route. After a few more turns, I found myself in front of some Federal building with one of those walls that changes height because the sidewalk slants as you walk up or down it. I decided to test my max jumping height. Why not?
I started with an easy height just to get my jumping shoes on. Then I slowly inched to the left where the sidewalk got lower and the wall got higher. This was an easy way of pushing my jumps little by little. As I jumped, anytime I felt myself coming down onto the ledge with room to spare instead of just barely making it, I knew I could move down another inch or two. The last jump I did was just over my belly-button and I did it three times to make it stick. I don't think I've ever really tested my max height before. I normally just jump until I can't anymore. I don't like to measure distances, but I felt like measuring something with my body was fine.
I was excited that a security guard hadn't asked me to stop yet, but I didn't want to push my luck so I kept moving. I started jogging in the direction I felt like jogging in, and eventually found myself back to a main road leading me home. What a perfect way to start the day. And I'm not even tired enough. I still have this strong urge to move. Maybe it's always there though, and I've just never noticed it before. I'll have to find a way to balance that with my schoolwork now that classes are starting... I don't think "I'm sorry professor, I just needed to move" is a valid excuse for not completing an assignment.
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