I was awake, again, at 2:30 this morning, and thankfully, again, able to fall back asleep until 5am. I can tell I’m stressed. I’m anxious, panicky. Not quite paralyzed with fear but it’s a little harder to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I don’t know what the future holds, and when surrounded by close friends and family, it’s easy to face. Out here, just me, not so much.
Quick cycle through those thoughts at 5am brought me to one conclusion: time to go for a run.
So I did. And noticed a change in my thought pattern while running.
Back home, I go for a run in the prairie, which is a big swath of gentle rolling forest preserve. There’s a nice grass trail that runs the length, from the hitching post down to the sledding hill and back. It has some gently rolling hills and meanders around. Really makes for a nice run. The trail terrain changes somewhat, depending on how much snow there was and how many snowmobiles were out during the winter. And it does get quite soggy after a good rain. Some parts are flat, there’s one gentle steep hill and the rest are just gentle rolls.
There are no streets, stop signs or intersections. It’s just one continuous loop. Lake Shore Drive path is one long path along Lake Michigan, also devoid, mostly, of stop signs and intersections. And it is flat.
Vancouver has the Sea Wall, which is like Lake Shore Drive. As I discovered early in my running forays, though, I have difficultly not looking at mountains. And when the mountains are behind you, turning your head to look at them while simultaneously running away from them is a recipe for scrapes, twisted ankles and the like. And that is even worse in the dark.
So I’ve taken to running the streets, unless I run down to Granville Island and then down along the path so I’m always looking at the mountains. Except I don’t feel comfortable doing that at 5:30 in the morning when it is still dark out, so I run the streets.
What I noticed this morning is that i start counting the blocks, and paying more attention to where I’m going and estimating how far I have gone and how much is left. Like watching the dashboard on the treadmill, wondering why only 30 seconds has passed since the last time I looked.
That ruins the experience for me. It doesn’t let my mind unwind itself and focus on, well, scenery or nothing at all.
It did get better this morning, though. Kind of like my mind worked itself out, adjusted to being back in a more urban environment that obviously wasn’t Chicago. Hills were a wake-up call as they aren’t gentle. They’re jagged, and my mind shifted its chatter to positive re-enforcement. Its griping over various things ceased and, for awhile, reminded me to breath, focused on my breathing, kept up some positive re-enforcement and lost itself in the motion of arms and legs pumping up a hill, turning a corner and registering the difference in footfalls of running on concrete vs running on grass.
And now I feel calmer, more relaxed. Still a bit tense, a bit stressed. I’m giving presentations in a couple of weeks and am nowhere near prepared. Coupled with the emotional turmoil of the past few weeks and, well, I guess my nerves are a bit frayed.
At this point in my life, I recognize that, and did what I discovered works well for me: went for a run.
And now I should probably get ready and head to the office.