I wanna be a lot of things, and for now, it's a runner.
This is my story as I train for the 2010 Seattle Rock N' Roll marathon.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Running Meditation

I've been out of commission for a few days because I got a cold. I could feel it coming on Friday night when my throat started to hurt. By the time I woke up on Saturday, it was full blown sickness. Not fun. Because of that I missed my long run of 7 miles this past weekend. I'm disappointed that I didn't get to do it, but I'm going to continue on with week 4 of my training.

I didn't go to work yesterday or today because I didn't want to spread my cold. Unfortunately I work in close quarters with 4 other people, so it seems like our colds are always being passed around. Being at home so much was fun at first, but now I'm starting to go stir crazy, and to top it off, it's been raining straight for the past 2 days.

Colds are a tricky illness because for the most part, they're all in your head. The congestion, itchy eyes, sore throat; it's all upstairs, leaving my body feeling mostly ok. I've been wandering around the apartment in search for something to do. I've finished a couple of magazines (one from June 2009!) and tried doing some weight training with my kettle bell, all to still end up restless. My inability to be still is even more apparent on days like today. I went over to my bookshelf to find a book to read, even though I'm currently reading like 6 at a time. What's interesting is that almost all of my books have little bookmarks in them at random places throughout, mostly at the beginning, because I very rarely ever finish a book that I've started in one sitting. I'll read it, put it back, and pick it back up again a few months later.

I think this inability to do one thing at a time is why running has been so challenging for me. When I'm out by myself, I have no choice but to continue the run. Even if I were to choose to stop running, I'd still have to get myself home...by running. Running forces me to focus on how I'm feeling during the run, focus on my thoughts, focus on my goals. Maybe I can turn this constant mind racing into some sort of running meditation.
It's a really nice change for me, and I hope that with my continued training, I can apply this approach to meditation during my other day to day activities.

Now if only the rain would ease up a bit so I could get out of this apartment!

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sorry to hear that you are under the weather and hope you will be feeling better very soon.
Spring has just really begun to have sprung this week in IN and it's great being outside and basking in the sunshine. :)

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