I run so that I can switch my head off. If you will, running is my mediation, and it is cathartic both mentally and physically. This morning I ran 22 miles on my favorite FreeMotion treadmill. For three solid hours (okay, three hours and twenty-five seconds), I ran on a conveyor belt with nowhere to go. At first, over the first few miles that literally creep by, my mind goes crazy. I think about the things I should be doing, the things I could be doing, and the things that are currently occupying unwarranted space in my heart and mind.
Then, at about nine miles in something happens. I lose myself. I loose track. My body feels the passing of time and the accumulation of lactic acid, but my mind can’t keep pace. I look down one minute and see nine miles, and then the next time I realize what I am doing I look down and find myself at fifteen. By the time my journey to nowhere is complete for the day, my mind finds a new state of calm that can only be compared to the calm exhaustion at which my body arrives.
Running enables me to reach a place of pure mental bliss, that is, the ability to think about everything and nothing all at the same time. Find what it is in your life that allows you to switch your head off, because live is meant to be lived from the heart, not from the head.