Running

I ran this evening. It hurt. I hurt. I thought I’d have a fairly pleasant run, and stop a little after the point of pain. Nope. I couldn’t manage the final lap that I had anticipated. Each limb protested and I felt my face too warm as I ran back to our drive.

It made me think. I have always preferred running in rain to running in the dry. My favourite weather for a run is a light but constant rain; enough to soak me over a couple of hours, but due to my motion, enough to keep me cool without chilling me. I like to run in a bit of a wind, when people would choose to stay indoors. It means that if you’re out running, you gotta have a reason to have to run in that weather. Just as I have always preferred to see a stormy sea on a wild day. I love the noise and the roar of the wind, that drowns out the everyday sounds of people’s easy home life. The tempest outside reflects the turmoil inside, and I can be focused on the space running creates. I am free and open to listen. God has space to speak, and I do not meld into the environment surrounding me, as it feels I do on sunny days. I maybe can’t hear my feet – depending on how high the wind has got up – and I could be screaming laughing crying and no-one would hear it. I don’t do those things when I run, but my inside is able to. It’s as if the silence that gets broken on the inside is able to be expressed on the outside. The elements express my voice for me. My feet strike a rhythm that becomes my voice – I can’t run out of rhythm with myself. I am in sync and in step with myself, which is not a feeling I experience all the time otherwise.

That was all. Just a thought on running. And maybe that’s why I couldn’t run well tonight. I was at odds with my running environment. The sun did not bother me, nor the warm air temperature, in the day. I enjoyed the light. But I needed something more challenging during my run.