Running Notes

Category Running Thinking
I hate winter. Every year this time of year, I hate winter. This is my third February since I've started running, and every February, I hate winter. But what is funny, is that I don't hate winter. I always think I do. But then I have some fabulous winter run in the cold or the snow or both and I realize that I love it.

Why do I love it? What makes those runs so great? It isn't the temperature, or the wind, or the snow, or lack of it. It's the thinking. I love running because I can think. And not in any coherent way. When I run my thoughts just flow, and drift, and expand, and contract, and come together, and separate. They clarify, get distilled, and become muddy and fuzzy.

On a good run, I'll think "hmmm", on a great run I'll have an "ah ha!" moment. And you can never know which during run an "ah ha!" moment will happen. And they can happen when thinking about something else entirely.

And it's never about the thing I *wanted* to think about. You have to let the thoughts tumble and weave in and out of eachother. If you want to think about something you'll find it slips away from you and you've been thinking about something else for last 1/4 mile. Even if you try to focus in, it slips away again. It's useless. Let the other thoughts pop up. While they may not be "important", they are apparently priority. You have to deal with them before you can deal with the other.

It's like soup.

(Huh?)

Stay with me, it's like soup. You make a giant pot of soup and you try to fish around in it looking for a piece of meat. But you can't. Because stuff keeps bubbling up to the top and makes it hard to see. You can't just keep stirring the stuff back down, looking for meat. It keeps bubbling up to the top. You've got to skim that stuff off and deal with it. And a few times, too. Not just once.

That's what thoughts are like while running. You have to let the stuff bubble up to the top and deal with it. Then suddenly, the soup is perfectly clear and you can see everything in the bottom of the pot.

Of course this doesn't just happen during running, you can let those thoughts bubble up and mix around, but it happens for me during running. So I don't hate winter. I need to remember that a great run is potentially waiting for me, a chance to skim off the thoughts and see clearly.