Lost & Found: I’ve Been Thinking…

“I am wondering ... and you seem to be the person to write about it ... what you think about when you run?” a friend asked this morning.

Sweet Red Stag sunglasses and Jim Beam earbuds found
while biking Thursday morning.

She went on: “When I used to walk my four-mile route each day, it really gave me time to think – about problems, issues I needed to work through, creative ideas ... you name it. With running, I don't think about that stuff. I hear people talk about how running helps them let go of their frustrations and clear their head but it makes me wonder – how? What are they thinking about when they run?
“Me? Though I should be more cognizant of my surroundings and enjoy the nature around me, I usually don't for fear of losing my footing. Sorting out problems or coming up with creative ideas have been replaced by concentrating on my breathing, my stride, and can I make it to the next stop sign.
“So, long story long, I'm curious. What do you think about when you run?”

Truthfully, my mind is rather aimless when I run. I think about the music, I think about what might lie ahead in the day. I ponder the past and future, try to come up with a direction in life. I wonder about what odd object I've just picked up. I get pissed off about the ubiquitous litter. I think about the people who are important in my life. I think about my life and what I've done to it.

Music captures my attention as much as anything. It speaks to me and I’ve been known to speak through it. So it is that I find myself contemplating lyrics and how they apply to my life or if a song might express something I have to say. Thing is, I haven’t changed my iPod contents in a while, so lately I’m growing a little weary of the same ol’ tunes.

If I’m in an emotional funk or fretting over work or something, I don’t precisely think about those issues. Well, not in a focused way. The emotional stuff is harder for me to ignore; the daily worries of work and finance and whatnot are easy enough to dismiss. But running calms my spirit. The underlying riff remains, but it’s subdued and I nearly always pick up the “runner’s high” to some degree – enough so that I am happier, more content during and after than I was before. It doesn’t last, of course, for that is the nature of happiness. But it helps. It’s one of the reasons I love running. (Did I just say that?)

I let the I Love Pandas coin purse where I found it - on the
corner of Kellogg and Ferris streets between two churches –
in case the little girl who owns it returns to look for it.

Litter bugs the hell out of me. Sometimes I feel I should pick up more of it. I have on occasion picked up a bag of fast food garbage or some particularly heinous mess, though those occasions have been rare. I stick to cans, which equal money, and whatever oddments attract my eye – a shirt, a wrench, a bra, a glove, a ball. Those are something to think about: how did a perfectly good pair of basketball shorts wind up on Maple Avenue three blocks from Churchill Junior High? How did a $40 Victoria’s Secret bra come to be frozen to the parking lot by Cottage Hospital? (Both I think must have fallen out of someone’s laundry basket – the bra was within 50 feet of an apartment building. The wrenches? Dad suggests they bounced off a truck rounding the corner too close and riding the curb.

So I guess you could say I think about anything and nothing. My thoughts are unfocused and random. But that’s part of the joy. The pressure is off. It’s like this lyric from Matchbox Twenty’s “Black and White People”:

One more day down
Everybody has those days
Where one soft, sweet song’s
Just enough to clear my head

I just augment the “soft, sweet song” – or whatever form it takes – with endorphins and motion.

Today's Stats

Temp: 43 degrees F

Distance: 3.2 miles

Weekly Total: 12.03 miles

Treasure: 28 cans; 1 I Love Pandas coin purse.

iPod Playlist (Shuffle):

Yellow – Coldplay

Luther Played Guitar – Stan Ridgway

Time and Time Again – Counting Crows

All This Time – Sting