A Nice, Long Run

It's been two years since I last updated this blog...maybe it's time to start again.

In the last two years, I've grown to love the structure provided by my local running store's group training programs. I can have the best of two worlds: group company when I need it (mostly when doing hard workouts where I'm not likely to push myself as hard as I could) and solo runs where I let my mind wander.

There is no place in my life where I let my mind wander as much as during the Saturday long run, where my running orders are to run an easy pace and keep my legs moving, mostly without stopping, for a set distance or time. I don't run with music, so it's just me and my thoughts. Today's run was 8.5 miles, which took me one hour and forty-five minutes to complete.

I'm lucky to live where I do, where I can run totally by myself for miles and miles. Well, not totally by myself. If I'm lucky, I encounter birds and the occasional rabbit or hare. Yes, I know it can be dangerous to run solo like this, but for some reason, running is the one area in my life where I've given myself permission to take the risk, because if I waited for a running companion...I'd still be waiting. And not running. And maybe the long-term health risk of such fear-inspired sedentarism is worse than the risk of having a heart attack or other accident in an isolated area. I don't know.

Today's run was supposed to be a group run, but I woke up late and missed the start time. Sometimes that's a plus, because maybe I don't want to chat for the whole time. Maybe I don't want to chat at all. Period. Sometimes I just want to be in my own head and run along, sort of in a dream state. Because although I know I'm thinking about things the whole time...sometimes I have trouble remembering just what my thoughts were. Just like it's hard to remember a dream after you wake up.

But mostly I think about wildlife and how well they generally get along if we humans don't get in their way. And then I think about how much we mess up their carefully timed, yet carefree, lives. We've taken away the effortless abundance that has fueled their lives for millennia and replaced it with scarcity and suffering. At the same time we've caused scarcity and suffering for our own, human kind. What kind of sense is there in that? And what more can I do to change that?

Well, there's always next week's run to ponder that some more.

Namaste.*

*The best part of me salutes the best part of you. Let us both be worthy of our space on this planet.