Beating the Blerch

The Blerch is an invention of cartoonist, Tesla-enthusiast and long-distance runner the Oatmeal.
In his original comic he explained that the Blerch is the voice in his head giving him advice like: don't run! eat cake!, and that he named it for the sound food makes when it's squeezed from a tube.

A friend told me yesterday that after reading my Blip she was able to identify HER Blerch, which made me think about Blerches in general and mine in particular.
See, I am convinced everyone has a Blerch inside them. Some people, like me, have really really big Blerches with many faces. It will not only tell me to eat cake when I should be doing something active, it will put me down when I think about doing something new. It will talk derogatorily at me when I'm attempting to grow.
The damn thing has made so afraid to fail, I'm too scared to even try.

So, while I spend a lot of time last year losing weight and getting healthy, it turns out I did not spend enough time fighting my Blerch - the reason I'm overweight and unfit. I'm going to change that.

Today I battled the voice that said: "You are so hopeless at running, you look so incredibly stupid, you should not be seen out in public in the middle of the day.*"

I ran home from work. Almost 3.2 miles and it was lovely. Like it should be. I ran with bare arms, loving the feeling of the sun on them and the wind in my face. And I didn't care who saw me :)


Saturday the Beloved told me I have a 'running smile'. I asked him, and yes, this is it.




*This is why I almost always run before 7am when only a handful of cars are on the road, no school kids anywhere.