I’ve been running again, probably for close to two months now. I had been thinking that for this current round of exercise, I’d simply lay off the weights and instead concentrate on pushups and roadwork.

I thought it would be the same as just lifting, maybe even better.

It wasn’t.

Don’t get me wrong, I like running. It’s a good activity, it really let’s me think. It’s just not the same as lifting, though. Not at all.

I don’t mean the physicality of it. Sure, they’re two totally different things. I mean the mental process behind it.

I started lifting when I was 18, met my first serious long-term girlfriend shortly thereafter…and that put and end to that. Four years and sixty pounds later, we split up and I decided to get back to lifting.

I guess I was most into it from age 23 to age 28. I was in pretty decent shape. Not a bodybuilder or anything, but I worked out regularly. The past ten years has been sort of hit-or-miss with lifting, but I’ve never totally abandoned it.

There’s something satisfying about the Iron, about the discipline required to lift.

I went to a gym briefly in the mid-90’s, but didn’t care for it. It was too clean, too many people, too many machines…it just didn’t work for me.

I like working out in the basement. It’s an unfinished, South St. Louis basement, dirty and dimly lit. Perfect for the sound of Iron hitting the racks. No machines, just free weights- unless you count cables as machines, which of course I don’t.

I love the sound of the plates slapping home, of the collars spinning on and off, of Soulfly or Pro-Pain or Rollins Band in the cd player.

So yeah, like I said, I thought I’d stick with running this time around. Then I lifted yesterday.

To hell with just running.

It’s all or nothing.