Laura Valaas

A Difference

I woke up early this morning and went for a run. It was a very enjoyable run. Then I had a very nice yoga session with my new kitten.

Aside: We got the most adorablest, cutest, tiniest, friendliest, lovablest kitten yesterday and said kitten spent most of yoga curled up squarely in the middle of my mat. She even managed to crawl up onto my lap and onto my belly between seated forward bend and bridge. Then I went straight into half-wheel (also known as a back bend for the rest of y’all) and she was perfectly content to perch on top. Shoulder stand to pike rolled her off though. Soooo Cute. End Aside.

I realized, as I was contemplating how nice my run was and how nice it was to stretch out afterward, that THIS run existed for me as a complete and separate entity, apart from any other run or workout or whathaveyou. It started at a certain point in my day, I ran, I came home, it was Good. For so long each run existed as only a part of a whole, one piece in the SkiFaster Puzzle. An individual workout was a means to attaining a goal. Of course I enjoyed my workouts but a huge part of that enjoyment was knowing it was bringing me one step closer to accomplishing something bigger. A run always had its place as 2hours OF THE 800 and I was always very aware after a workout of how that workout fit into the grander scheme of things.

This morning I ran just for the day. Exactly as I felt like running today. I didn’t think about what I had (er… hadn’t, rather) done yesterday, I didn’t think about what workout was happening tomorrow. I didn’t think about getting faster for some far distant race. I simply ran because running was good and running was the proper thing to do this morning. It’s so refreshing! I feel like I have given the verb To Run its proper homage by running solely for the sake of running in that Moment.

When I finished I looked at my watch. 1:16. I looked at it waiting to feel something. Nothing. one hour, sixteen minutes, thirty eight seconds. seventy six minutes. It’s a unit of time and it had absolutely no impact on me. I looked at it out of pure reflex, it doesn’t have any meaning. For so long there was always a value attached to the time on the watch at the end of a workout. Good. Bad. Never indifferent. It was always accompanied by a judgment statement. “I did great!” “I should have gone 90 minutes.” Whatever it was I was always judging my workouts. (And, let’s be honest, I gave myself a LOT of positive feedback. Constructive criticism! Sandwich the critique between two compliments! Positive self-talk!)

No judgment, no value outside of the intrinsic value of running in that moment. That’s the difference. I’m redefining my concept of Running.

Posted in Snow.

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