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| comment | | "parent_author":"",<br>"parent_permlink":"life",<br>"author":"dragosroua",<br>"permlink":"running-along-with-your-thoughts",<br>"title":"Running Along With Your Thoughts",<br>"body":"![ (http:\/\/dragosroua.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/IMG_4469.jpg)\n***\n_This is a chapter for my next upcoming book,<br> **Running For My Life**,<br> which will be launched this December._\n***\nThe first sensation is freshness. And the second one is silence. There's hardly anyone on the streets,<br> or in the park,<br> at that time. There's the morning light. Simple,<br> powerful without trying to show off,<br> uncovering inch by inch all the objects held prisoners over night by the dark.\n\nSometimes I cross paths with street cleaners,<br> very early in the morning. They talk loudly,<br> pushing or pulling their chariots and making heavy noises just to feel awake. Or so I'm thinking,<br> while passing them by fast,<br> in absolute silence.\n\nYou start slowly,<br> one leg in front of the other,<br> shaking loosely your upper part of the body,<br> breathing deeply,<br> looking around and moving forward almost effortlessly. Your thoughts are frozen,<br> lying down somewhere in the back of your head,<br> still sleeping. There's only one,<br> maybe two main thoughts popping up in your conscious field,<br> mainly things you probably left unsolved form yesterday.\n\nYou keep putting one leg in front of the other,<br> slowly getting into a pace where you can forget that you\u2019re moving. Thoughts start to become more present,<br> forming shapes,<br> structures and connections inside your mind. As you keep moving,<br> the shapes are slowly falling into their designated places,<br> like in a chid game where you have to put 3d toys into their corresponding holes. This pyramid goes here,<br> this cube goes there. Everything starts to fit in. You keep moving.\n\nThe first few kilometers are always the nicest. You\u2019re relaxed,<br> no clear objective yet,<br> you just run to get in rhythm. Then your GPS clock is beeping gently. Ok,<br> you\u2019re already over the first 2-3 kilometers. \n\nAt that point,<br> your routine changes. If you\u2019re aiming for a certain time for that training,<br> you start doing some calculations. How fast your run,<br> how much do you need to adjust. Your pace changes. Your breathing changes. Sometimes your step becomes bigger,<br> sometime just your cadence is changed. You may lean a bit forward,<br> keeping your head up. \n\nNow you\u2019re training. \n\nYou enter into the flow of that training. If it\u2019s a long run,<br> 20 or 30 or 40 kilometers,<br> you will be there for a long time. So you prepare. You set a mental alarm for the moment you\u2019re gonna get out of this. Sometimes you say to yourself: \u201ctalk to you in 2 hours\u201d,<br> or something like that. Then you continue to run. \n\nTime dilutes. There\u2019s no more sense of the time other than your pace per kilometer or whatever you\u2019re aiming for. If it\u2019s interval training,<br> it will be spiky. You\u2019ll sprint for short intervals and then recover with a nice jog. But even when you\u2019re doing intervals,<br> you\u2019re fully there,<br> no distractions,<br> no thoughts,<br> no attention spared on everything else that\u2019s not for your training.\n\nAnd then,<br> with just a few minutes left until the end of the training,<br> you start to gently get out of the trance. You shake your head a bit,<br> starting to notice the people around. Of course they were there all the time,<br> you passed them by,<br> avoided some of the most careless,<br> but they didn\u2019t count. They were just background. Now you start to look at their faces. Some of the are smiling at you. Sometimes you smile back.\n\nBreathing may be heavier. There\u2019s some pain. There\u2019s almost always some pain: leg muscle pain,<br> chest pain from the accelerated breathing,<br> back muscles pain or feet pain. But you know that already: pain is your friend. You run with it,<br> not from it. You\u2019re together,<br> a team. You may even smile at the memory of pain you had form your early days as a runner. So much changed since then. No more avoidance. It\u2019s just there,<br> with you.\n\nAnd then,<br> seconds before the end of the training,<br> one last deep breathe,<br> and you\u2019re done. \n\nThat was it for today. \n\nYou keep walking gently,<br> sometimes you stretch a bit. The pain slowly vanishes,<br> leaving the pure pleasure flowing in. You know it\u2019s endorphins released by the brain,<br> but that\u2019s just the surface of the process,<br> just the physical level. \n\nThere\u2019s more to that and you know it. \n\nBreathing calms down. Eyesight may be clear again,<br> if you ran in the rain or in the snow.\n\nThat\u2019s it for today,<br> you\u2019re ready. \n\nThe world may start to unfold again.\n\n_image source: personal collection: Deer's Valley,<br> Omu peak,<br> Carpathian Mountains_\n***\n_I'm a serial entrepreneur,<br> blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at [Dragos Roua (http:\/\/dragosroua.com) where I write about productivity,<br> business,<br> relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua._<center>\n![Dragos Roua (http:\/\/dragosroua.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/bamf-e1448824881306.png) <\/center>\n***\n\n<center>_**You can also vote for me as witness here: \nhttps:\/\/steemit.com\/~witnesses**_<\/center>",<br>"json_metadata":" \"tags\":[\"life\",<br>\"running\" ,<br>\"users\":[\"dragosroua\" ,<br>\"image\":[\"http:\/\/dragosroua.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/IMG_4469.jpg\",<br>\"http:\/\/dragosroua.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/bamf-e1448824881306.png\" ,<br>\"links\":[\"http:\/\/dragosroua.com\",<br>\"https:\/\/steemit.com\/~witnesses\" ,<br>\"app\":\"steemit\/0.1\",<br>\"format\":\"markdown\" " | | vote | "voter":"dragosroua",
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