A stream of consciousness, generative and meandering, flows through my head when I run. Not in the first 7 minutes when all my brain thinks about is the imagined aches, the tightness in my shoulders or any number of other reasons to turn around an go home. In the beginning, my brain doesn’t like it when I run and tries to game me into stopping. I keep going because the tricks aren’t really original. I have heard the Excuses before. I push trough, anticipating the big shift. I never actually experience the shift but rather find myself on the other side of the game. I am suddenly aware that my brain is clicking with every stride, shifting with each breath, moving with each football. I race from idea to conclusion to loosely associated connection and loop again. For 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 60, 70 I relish the race; inhaling deep and turning a into b. In the moment, I am better than before- fitter, smarter, happier. This is the reward. I don’t know what others call the zone. I always run alone because I don’t want to corrupt the rhythm. When I race, I never get to the place, my brain is focused on the heels in front of me and the next orange flag.
I would love to say that my best ideas come when running alone – they do but I don’t remember them. I bring home glimmers of greatness but not the fully formed stream that 7 or 8krolls out. I know that the process is healthy for me; my heart, my head, my soul and in special moments some as yet unimagined, not fully formed, solution just appears at the edge of my thought and I recognize it, however unfamiliar, as a great gift from a recess in my racing mind.
Make Today Remarkable, by pushing past the Excuse,
B
Make It Your Problem 