How being grateful for not being stuck in traffic makes running easier.
There’s only one functioning treadmill at my humble gym in El Centro of Mexico City, but I’ve been coming here long enough that I know what time to get it, and lately I’ve been running 4 or 5 kilometers 3 or 4 days a week — staring through the window as I run.
The grainy window on the second story looks out at a four-lane road, Izazaga, divided in half by a median. When the traffic stops, men and boys run out between the cars to scrub windows or sell candy, chips, gum, and water. And there is always traffic, even when the gym is empty, day and night, bumper to bumper — the heart of Mexico City doesn’t beat; it growls like the sound of a muscle car revving its engine.
I don’t even have a car and I hate traffic. I’ve always hated it, and for the last eight years, I’ve lived in one of the most congested neighborhoods in Latin America, El Centro Historic de la Ciudad de Mexico. How many hours, whole days, have I spent in this city, I think, stuck standing at a light to cross the street while cars and motorcycles zip by?
I knew a Russian kid who came to Mexico City after Russia started calling up young men to go fight in Ukraine in September 2022. He lasted about three months, then he went back to Russia — citing incessant traffic as one of the reasons he couldn’t take it anymore. I don’t hate traffic as much as Alexa, but hell — I really don’t like it. Never have and never will.
But these days, as I try to run faster and longer, thinking over my life as I stare at the four lanes of cars, trucks, city buses, and motorcycles at a standstill, I’ve been thinking about how grateful I am to be running and not to be stuck in traffic. I relish the act of doing something difficult that when compared to being stuck in traffic, is really not that difficult at all.
It is a blessing that my online job affords me a lifestyle where commuting to work is never a necessity, and that my aging body still has two healthy legs to run on. Putting these two blessings together into a single moment is wonderful — almost euphoric.
I don’t want to spend my life in traffic any more than I want to spend it in a coal mine. And I’m discovering, slowly, that being able to run with gratitude makes the running less difficult. So now, when I get tired around kilometer 3 or 4, I remind myself that at least I’m not in traffic, and I remember that running, and every chance I get in life to exercise, is a gift.