Today I had one of those runs. It began like any other run with me walking up the hill to reach my townhouse complex entrance (no sense starting a run in oxygen debt, thus I walk to the top). From there I was off on my newly discovered seven mile hilly loop.
The morning/day was/is beautiful. Hardly a cloud in the sky, just a slight breeze from the South. One of those days in March where you become sure that Spring is on the way (and so is the Spring snowfall).
Lately, I've spent maybe half of my runs listening to podcasts from competitor.com or Daniel Pink's book A Whole New Mind (for the umpteenth time). Anything to pretty much forget the run and leave behind my many thoughts of the day, most of which revolved around a plethora of stressful, unresolved issues.
Today, however, it was no earbuds; no escape. Bring on the thoughts and bring them ALL on.
I like to think and I really like the way I think on the run. Who knows, really, about endorphins and the elusive runner's high. All I know is that when I am running and am one with my planet, I become one with my own mind. Sounds dangerous, doesn't it?
Thoughts, at first, bounce. I struggle with this thing or that. It almost seems forced. I hang in through this part because most of what I am struggling with needs to be, at the least, acknowledged. Then, wonderfully, the thoughts begin to flow. Answers arrive and usually then, plans emerge to place those answers into action.
Generally, I twirl the answers around until they become tightly embedded in my mind (almost like screwing them into place). Once firmly in place, I begin to clearly see the new visual; the new approach; the new outcome. Once I see it, I believe it. Once belief is in place, it becomes a part of me, part of who I am, part of my soul.
I love the fact that I have found this activity that not only allows me the opportunity and the challenge of being in touch with myself and my world physically, mentally and spiritually, but also seems to encourage it. I've stated many times that I do my best thinking; my best work, on the run. If that is the case, today on the ten scale, I was an eleven.
Yeah, I suppose I'm getting physical benefit from the run as well. Bopping along for an hour or more at an elevated heart rate is good cardiovascular work. And I know that my running has been one of the primary reasons I have avoided much of the sickness and disease many of my chronological mates deal with as we age. But as good as that may be, the physical is not the lure of the run. It's the rest of it.
There is much to do in this life and in this goofy-ass world of ours. Sometimes it seems too full of nastiness, cynicism and negativity. It's nice to have a place to go. Where's yours?
That song is stuck in my head, now: "I can see clearly now." Guess that means it was a Claritin run.
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