Day 85 - 60 Minutes

After bragging about being able to fit all of my running gear into a small track bag, this morning it was 28F. And only 32F when I ran at lunch. Still, I managed to squeeze my cold weather gear into the same track bag. It looked like a plump blueberry just on the verge of breaking it's skin.

Defying the low temp, the sun made for a glorious run.

Looking up into a cloudless blue sky, set my mind to contemplation mode. And what I contemplated was time.

Specifically an hour.

On occasion, we are handed the gift of an hour. A meeting is canceled, or a friend bails on lunch, or you finish up whatever you were doing sooner than planned.

My question is what to do with that hour.

I know what I do when I get an hour. I veg. I plop down and see what my busy little TiVo has queued up for me. Occasionally I multi-task by petting the dog.

At what point, though, does relaxing become wasting time?

But then, if I'm always doing what I should be doing, what's the point of it all?

The answer, I imagine, is some boring Life-Coachy "balance" approach that mixes responsibility and sensibility with play and rest.

But honestly, I'm not looking for an answer. The key for me is that I'm asking the question. And lots of questions like this one.

I'm more aware of my time, my life, myself, than I've ever been before.

My point, I guess, is that taking just a few minutes for myself each day for a run has given me the opportunity to step away from "the world" and spend a little time in the real one, the one that I inhabit and move through each day. And it's pretty amazing how those few minutes in the real world change my perspective on "the world".

Unrelated note... got a voice mail from my doc. He said that the results of the heart scan were "Good" and that the 13.67 score was "inconsequential." Uh, doc... Instead of a Reuben and onion strings, I had salmon for dinner at the pub last night. Salmon! That's pretty darn "consequential"!

Good running,
Doug

Numbers: 2.5 miles on wonderfully muddy trails.