The Treadmill

A treadmill is a machine you find in a gym. You press a few buttons and this conveyor belt-like-thing rotates and you have to walk/jog/run so that you don’t fall.

I recently got onto a treadmill.
Not for the first time, but for the first time in a long time.

It was moving, I was moving, but I was in the same place.
I was sweating, breathless, I played around with the speed and the incline features, I put myself through so much- just to be sweating in the same place. And at the end of the first set, it said I ran (or what ever that was) for 1 kilometre. But I was still in the gym. Staring at the wall. I travelled a distance, but was not physically where I would have been if I was running outside.

You are trying, aren’t you?

You are increasing the speed and the difficulty of your life, you are panting and looking for a break, but then you look around and you haven’t moved. At one point you hit the runner’s high- and you could not even feel the pain or the exhaustion anymore. You were just- running. And at the end, you felt tired. But you hadn’t moved.

That’s demotivating.
It’s gruelling.
It’s disappointing.

I have scaled mountains and travelled distances I could never imagine walking… on a treadmill. But when I look around, all I am is sweaty and in the same place as when I started.

BUT. There is always a “but”.

You are stronger. You may not have physically shifted from your location, but you can go longer distances, your calves are toning up, your endurance is increasing. You are stronger than you once were, even though you are in the same place. If you keep testing yourself in the same situation, you still grow. Growth may not always mean that you have moved on from a situation or place entirely, it may just mean your mentality is better, you are being groomed in the same position so that you skate by in reality. Under harsher conditions, you are still training. You are still growing even though you feel stagnant.

So if you feel you are in your “treadmill” stage of life, keep pushing yourself to new speeds and incline higher, do more intervals, keep up with the sets. You are still growing, and when you move- it will be a breeeezeee!