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| Maybe I'll learn to hit a golf ball someday... |
I did nine miles of thinking this weekend and it ended up being about a question that Dr. Jay posed on a previous post. Am I running away from or running toward something? The answer is that it depends on the run. Actually, during my long run Saturday, I was running with something, which was quite the experience.
On select Fridays, we have book club. We call it that facetiously...we're not really that nerdy. We read a chapter on being in the present and discussed a lot about the significance of passing thoughts and how they affect us. The authors posit that living in the present is ideal, which seems kind of hedonistic to me. It also seems dangerous...maybe I've been around too many intoxicated college students during Dr. Ward's data collection telling me they live by the YOLO motto (you only live once). When I hear this coming from someone who is stumbling to their next drink and likely to forget the part of life they're currently living, you can't blame me for thinking the present is at least a little evil. I have historically been and currently am future-oriented who likes to learn from the past.
I was present-oriented on my run Saturday, which was really what I wanted to put into words here and now. Saturday was cold, windy, and it snowed for a while. It didn't seem like a good day to run nine miles. Regardless of Nature's plans, "9" was on the schedule and I reassured myself that getting out the door was the hardest part. Then, I would owe ten or so minutes of freezing cold misery before warming up, which was a fair price to pay for a much longer span of positive running experience. Early in my run, I run past a golf course. Yesterday was March 2, which is significant to me because it was 11 months since my grandpa passed away last year. He used to golf when he could with my dad and brother When I ran past the course, I thought of him being there playing golf and enjoying himself (in much nicer weather conditions), but also accompanying me on the rest of my run. It was an experience I don't have often - running with something in the present moment. It was uncomfortable, but I liked having the experience of him being there and doing something he hadn't been able to do for quite some time. When I was running with my grandpa, I couldn't distance myself from the experience because it was in the present. When reminiscing or planning gets too heavy, you can always reassure yourself that its done or may not even happen. I didn't want to distance myself, but the discomfort came from knowing that I couldn't even if I wanted to.
I hope to have this type of run again, where I'm really experiencing something, rather than processing my day or my life.
Week 7 Friday, Saturday, and Sunday
Friday I attended spinning. Three of my Individual Exercise students were in the class, so I felt as if I had something to prove. Obviously this topic is worthy of an entire post on expectations of "authority," so I won't really go into it here. However having them present and in very close proximity to my bike was something that added a little extra to my effort put forth for that workout.
Saturday was long run day. Despite the experience I had, my body was not on board with running that distance after having taken a week and a half without running and only 11 miles on my legs for the current week so far. The last half of the run was tough on my legs, but mentally, I'm feeling so ready to take it to the next level that I'm beginning to feel some anxiety.
Today, Sunday, I went to spinning. This was quite the accomplishment because I also went out last night. That's an accomplishment for me as well...to be with friends in a social environment after dark has happened infrequently this year. Some of the time in spinning was spent recovering from my run. I got off the bike a couple times during the class to stretch and get water. I've found that physically getting off the bike is the only way to stop myself from going hard. While every instructor urges you to take it down a notch if you need to, when the music is playing and everyone around me is working, I work too.
fabulous. Anyone who use "lugubrious" is a writer.
ReplyDeleteI guess I would say that every second, every minute we are all experiencing things. Being present--meaning that you and the experience are one-- helps the felt experience, meaning that it's deeper, more meaningful?
You can have an experience but it could be a distracted experience as opposed to a felt experience.