Quote of the Week...from Dean Karnazes

I think I have some of my clearest thoughts when I'm out running.          ---Dean Karnazes.

A little more than a year ago I quoted Dean Karnazes, a long distance runner whose book Ultra-Marathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner remains as one of my favorites...here's a link to that quote.  The above comment is something I can also relate to...well, not lately...

For a few years at the start of this decade I was like Karnazes (although my running mileage was much lower than his) in that I would go out on daily long training runs in the late morning/early afternoon before I would go to my job.  During those runs there really wasn't anything to distract me...unless you consider the mp3 music I was listening to as a distraction...so I did a lot of thinking, too.  My thoughts during those runs were mostly of an uplifting, constructive nature...not the self-defeating thoughts that too many of us get into a rut repeating to ourselves.  And the successful conclusion of these long runs also gave me a push into a more positive frame of spirit that carried over to the rest of the day...

Nowadays I run either indoors, at the gym, or outdoors in my back yard...not the same thing as getting out on the road and touring the neighborhoods.  And consequently I've found it easier to let myself get out of the "zone" while running and sidetracked by distractions.  Road running, on the other hand, is something of a commitment of my time and it's easy to go off into a good state of cognitive reverie when I'm out there.  I need to do more of it if for no other reason...but there is also another good reason to get back out on the road: it gives me a sense of belonging and engagement with the world around me and reduces the sporadic feelings of alienation that I am prone to experience...

Maybe running isn't for you, but there is probably another kind of activity that can produce the same positive results that Dean Karnazes suggested.  In any event, all of us need to be able to find a time and place to "break the limiting pattern" of our routine daily existence and provide a different setting that gives us a chance to see things from a more objective...and hopeful...perspective...