Sunday, December 11, 2011

On Your Mark, Get Set . . .

So: I promised myself a while back that the next time I went for a run, I would start this blog. I knew it would be "Running for the Middle," and I have some ideas what kinds of things I might write about. But I was still nervous to start. So I took a couple weeks off running.

Today, I couldn't stay away any longer, but I still wasn't ready to blog, so I went for a long run by my standards: 12.4 miles (1:55:11). During that time, I came up with hundreds of interesting things to blog about, but they all went away.

Still, I suppose that's part of this project: to run and be thoughtful and let things go. Which brings me to the first question of this blog: why do you run? Today's answer: to let things go. The answer's different almost everyday for me. Some days, admittedly, it is about health. Some days it's about getting out of the house. Some days, it's a negative answer: e.g. so I don't feel bad about myself. Some days I don't know why I run until I get back from my run. Some days I'm still not sure at that point.

Today, I ran twelve miles, and during that time, a lot cropped up in my mind -- wondering whether or not I'll have a job next year, whether or not we'll have a house, whether or not I'm ever going to "make it" as a writer. There was also stuff about the past: I wondered what would my life would have been like if I had been a better high school runner, what my life would be like if I hadn't stopped running through most of my twenties, what my life would be like if I were more competitive.

When I'm at home, when I'm wondering whether or not to run or blog or cook or read, when I'm cutting grass or walking the dog -- in short, when I'm not running -- I often get caught in those loops, those unproductive loops of planning the future or trying to change the past. But when I'm running . . . not always, but some days, like to day . . . when I'm running I can just let those things go.

So. That's what I did today. I let it all go and ran like hell. It felt good. Now I'm going to shower.


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