An easy 5k embracing Mindfulness of Running – 31:30

Posted on Jun 06, 2012 under 5k, Easy Runs, Musings | No Comment

Have had something of a personal retreat over the long bank holiday weekend, avoiding facebook, forums and text messaging as much as possible. Well to be honest have avoided facebook altogether, forums altogether, and just maintained brief contact with a select few. Have spent a lot of time meditating and entering into some quite blissful states, and this morning I needed to go the the shops, which was an interesting walk, I had to stop and marvel at the beauty of a single red rose in a garden, and everything had a certain aliveness.

So I wondered what a run would be like, and was due a run, so had to resist the urge to contemplate my navel for another 24 hours and slowly got my kit on (deciding to wear my casual La Santa t-shirt rather than a proper running top for a short easy run), then stepped out into some nice early afternoon sunshine, though there were dark clouds here and there. Sunglasses and baseball cap on, I set off and played slalom with the bin men, one of whom kindly let me past before he dragged two bins to the van. Quite often I feel aggressive and irritated at people in my way when I run – probably hormones and adrenaline and all that, but on this occasion I felt quite at peace with the world around me, slowed without complaint for cars and road crossings, and just concentrated on my breath and running at a nice easy pace after a high mileage week last week.

Even the hills didn’t get a curse and I felt a sense of flow about this run, I did get quite puffy with the hills but didn’t overheat and kept the pace nice and easy and enjoyed really engaging with my surroundings – cars, leaves, cyclists, litter, tarmac, sky, it all had this quality to it that is hard to describe.

My weather control faculties were fully operational, as I had nice cloud-filtered sunshine for the run, and as soon as I got home and opened my back door to cool off, the heavens opened! In keeping with the tone of the last few days I walked out into it and embraced the sensations of the rain cooling my skin and felt quite at one with everything.

Am not sure a hard 5k time trial would have left me feeling quite so peaceful, but I think these easy mindful runs should definitely form a more regular part of my schedule in the future!

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