As some of you may have seen on Google+, I’ve started jogging in the mornings.

I jog Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. At first it was awful, my legs and my chest hurt like crazy, but now I can handle it well. I started on the 10th, a week ago from tomorrow. At first I started jogging with my friend, who did cross-country in high school and ran regularly with her parents at home, but because of her schedule I ended up doing it alone. I think I actually prefer to do it alone, mostly because I can listen to music. 

I didn’t really expect to enjoy jogging. I played soccer as a kid and absolutely hated it, and since then I’ve avoided physical activity. A few years ago I started using the elliptical machine we had in our house as exercise, along with going on walks, and successfully started losing weight, but I don’t have an elliptical machine in my dorm room. But really, I love jogging. I think what I love most about it is the end, though, but not for the reason you might think.

I’ve had asthma most of my life; specifically exercise-induced asthma. I remember as a kid that when I ran too much, pushed myself too far, my own body would basically suffocate me. A long time ago on TV I saw an ad for research for childhood asthma, and they showed a goldfish flopping around in a shallow puddle. That’s exactly how asthma feels. Actually, because of that ad, I can’t bear to see fish flopping around on land because I know how they feel, and because of it I’ve cried while going fishing with my dad before… But that’s a story for another time haha.

As I’ve gotten older, my asthma has gotten better. Medicine is advancing, and I now take two prescriptions specifically for asthma; Singular and Advair. Both are amazing, and it’s kind of scary to think that if not for them, I’d probably not be alive. I also have an emergency inhaler, the kind that “nerdy kids” would have in 90’s and 00’s TV shows, which I use if I feel an asthma attack coming on. I also use it before exercising, because it’s technically a steroid and helps my lungs open up and prevent asthma attacks from happening.

In the mornings, I jog a mile. The school’s track is less than 2 minutes away from my dorm on foot, so I do four laps around it plus a cool down walking lap. For the first 3 laps I jog, but on the 4th one, I run. As I near the end of the lap, I always hear a voice in the back of my head telling me to stop, that I almost made it and that’s good enough. But I always push it back, and I push my body to keep going. After I ran that entire lap for the first time, I was completely out of breath. I could barely control my breathing, and couldn’t help but take in the biggest breath of my life. What hit me was that I didn’t feel any constriction in my lungs. I could breathe like a normal person after a run. That feeling is one of the best feelings I’ve had in my life, and I couldn’t help but smile. I can breathe! I can BREATHE!!

The final running lap of my jog is my favorite part of the morning, by far. It makes me feel human.

I’ve made a set of songs I listen to, so here’s that:

First lap: Try Unite! aka the OP of Rinne no Lagrange. This song is really hopeful and fun, I always imagine myself as Madoka as I run to it. Actually, this is really embarrassing, but when I run I always put my hair up like her’s with that silly front ponytail.
Second and Third laps: This is a mix, it depends on what I feel like listening to. The choices are Try Unite! again, Kagerou Days, Vidro Moyou (the Ano Natsu de Matteru ED), Love Distance Long Affair, or whatever else comes to my mind.
Fourth lap: Amai Elegy. Always. I have the urge to run whenever I hear this song. Basically the story is about a guy and a girl, but for whatever reason the girl must go and save the guy. I first heard the song because the Mawaru Penguindrum fandom was talking about how it could be used to describe the relationship of Shoma and Ringo after the last episode of the series, with Ringo going to save Shoma from his fate of disappearing. I somehow connect it to my own life too, but I don’t understand how. The music video shows the girl running, and the song gets suddenly dramatic, so running to this song is easy. I feel almost desperate when I run to it, and my eyes always water. This song has emotion that no other song I know can capture, for whatever reason.

So I’m enjoying my running, but…

It seems like every day I hate my body more and more. Despite this running, it feels like I’ve actually gained weight. That’s a bad phrase, since I don’t have a scale and thus don’t know my weight at all, but it feels like I’m getting fatter. My waist is back to 33 inches. At the beginning of the school year it was 32, tipping towards 31. I’m so disappointed in myself, yet it seems like no matter what I do I can’t fight it. Sometimes I wonder why I couldn’t be like so many of my friends and be born with a naturally fast metabolism, or at least have a height to fit my body type. If I was, say, 5’6, with my measurements I would look awesome. But at 5’2, I just look dowdy.

The other day one of my friends told me that in three months I’ll look awesome if I keep up the running. But really, I doubt it. I guess it’s only been a week, so I can’t judge myself too harshly, but I just want a transformation. I want to come back from college with an amazing body, I want to stun everybody. I’ve considered dropping my cosplays after Sakuracon and instead dedicating myself to getting in shape in order to fly in out of nowhere with a rocking body doing some sort of cosplay that shows off all my hard work and makes people stop thinking of me as the one fat girl in all the groups I do.

Honestly, I’ll keep running. It feels so good after the running lap, almost crying from desperation and breathing as deeply as I can. I like being truly alone in the mornings, with only the worms and the morning mist to see me.