I See Running People

It was a very busy weekend you see. At least it was supposed to be or I remember it that way, but when I look back at my calendar there isn’t much on it. Friday night was busy with the kids – so no time for a run outside. Saturday I had a morning sound check and late morning concert and Sunday was complicated so I figured that Saturday after the concert was the best time to run.

This run was four weeks ago so I’m having a hard time remembering where my head was. But what I do remember is although there were people on the trail I felt like Bruce Willis in “The Sixth Sense” – like no one could see me – and it made me think back to people I used to run with regularly but haven’t seen in awhile. Ghosts from my running past. It’s not a sad thing – more like my running history laid out before me. It made me smile.

The Run

Being that I wanted to run outside, I was alone, and I didn’t want to put much thought into where to run, I went straight to the B&A trail. It was around 3 in the afternoon so the usual traffic of runners and cyclists had given way to the families and more leisurely patrons of the trail giving me an added sense of detachment.

I didn’t have any expectations. I had just run the Rock n’ Roll half the week before at a very slow pace and I hadn’t run at all the entire week in between – but I felt strong immediately. I decided right away that I would run the first half faster than normal and just suffer slowly on the way back.

I started at mile marker 1 and went north with a skip in my step and a song in my…. ear. Seriously I could not shake it. We played it earlier that afternoon at the concert and it stuck with me for ALL 13.1 miles. What song is that you ask?

Falling in Love with Love

What? Yeah – it’s a catchy tune but it’s not my favorite. It’s in a weird key for me and I always struggle with it when I play this particular arrangement. But here it was, in my ear, driving the pace of my run. We had played it a little fast at the concert and maybe that’s why it was stuck in my head. Who knows. I kept expecting it to to go away but it never did. I kept expecting to slow down – but I never did. Not that I was going crazy fast – just faster than I had expected.

Maybe it was the easy pace the week before, or the week off in between, or being distracted by memories or the uptempo tune in my ear but I did not feel like slowing down. So I didn’t.

Not the Run

Oh what to say. What to say? I’m not feeling poetic or particularly insightful four weeks after the fact. I’m feeling like I still have three more reports to write after this.

Work is busy which I’m enjoying. I’ve been feeling very out of balance on the whole work life spectrum – with very little energy going into work and most of it going into “life”. And it’s funny because normally this means I’d be killing it in the life department – but all it really means is that it’s been taking a lot of energy just to keep on moving. You maybe read about this a couple weeks ago – job uncertainty and needing a career coach and all. I’m still working on that project – but in the meantime, my minimal energy at work has had me feeling guilty.

It used to be (in another life) that I’d get this way – lower energy at work – after having put in a couple years of solid over achieving and professional development – but not this time. I have no excuse other than “I cannot stop staring at these crossroads in my career. I’m not sure exactly how to proceed.” So the busy time at work has been a nice distraction from that. At the very least I don’t feel guilty on payday. I guess if all else fails and I start to lose my pace, I can just put the headphones on listen to a little “Falling in love with love.”