Day 222 - Groups and Vacuums

Doing anything with a group is difficult. Picking a movie, ordering food, planning a revolution.

There are just too many variables.

Today's group run was a good example.

We started together. And that lasted about 90 seconds.

The electric-blanket-in-the-sauna heat, our varying levels of fitness, our even more varied ages, and my hacking summer cold doomed the social meeting. We were just three guys who took the same car and ran on the same stretch of the Monon Trail.

Fine by me. I had thinking, and some non-thinking to do. And lots of coughing.

That worked, at least until the last mile. The heat was beating me up and I didn't have conversation to distract me. My brain was talking to me, telling me to stop and walk.

Stupid brain. Always freaking out.

Ok, there are times when you might be in danger of heat stroke, and listening to your body is important. But I had hardly slowed. I was doing just fine. It was just my over-protective, over-anxious, self-preservation instinct kicking in.

For me, this instinct manifests as a thought, more like a feeling, originating in my head... right at the back.

So I decided to use an irrational solution to this irrational fear. I imagined my head was a clear plastic canister, like the one on Dyson vacuums. And with every inhale, those thoughts of "stop", and "walk", and "why do you do this to us?" would swirl around inside my head like sucked up dust bunnies.

And with every exhale, I'd blow them out, never to be heard from, or thought, again.

For anyone who was running behind me, sorry about the mess.

Good running,
Doug

Numbers: 4.0 miles on pavement.