Running Journal 24

So I'm almost home from my first run in how long? Two weeks (checking my ever-present planner) is a long time if you're trying to train. And the alleged link between running and writing is becoming more and more untenable. My wishful thinking was that when I run I write, and when I write I run, but I've been falling off that wagon lately, so it just doesn't hold up.

Then while still a little high on the post-workout endorphins, I came across a timely article in the Sunday Times about a similar parallel involving the old formula for creativity - 90 percent perspiration and 10 percent inspiration - but emphasizing the need to take a break. Here is something I'm pretty good at.

Having just returned from a week's vacation in the northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan, revisiting some of my favorite haunts and indulging in some of my favorite passions, I know whereof I speak. Although I swam in a couple of pretty nice lakes, bicycled a few miles, and did a little taiji every day, I did not run, and I did not adhere to a strict discipline of any kind - physical, intellectual, journalistic, or financial. I pretty much played.

The weeks preceding our week Up North were the usual imbalance of work and play, and maybe that's a common consequence of planning a big vacation escape from the routine. Looking back, I went for a run on the last Sunday in July and another one the first Sunday in August. I even did the rare mid-week run (and swim) the following Wednesday, having released myself from the office early due to a lighter than normal publishing list. I ran (and swam) again that Friday, and again on Sunday. It was a very strange week in many ways, such as selling Zelda's car, having to get a new back window on Gven's car after some idiot vandal broke it, and using up lots of energy stressing about those things.

Or maybe I was drawing on the body's built-in gyroscope without even knowing that the workouts were keeping me balanced despite everything. If you could call it 'balanced'. We got through it more or less intact, and all I can say is, without knowing what was the cause and what was the effect, two and a half miles three times a week probably helped.

Then I went a week without running (but not without a rationalization) and today got back on the wagon. Still just managing between two and three miles out Park Street to the nature preserve and back, still starting out very slowly, finding a rhythm about halfway, and coming back stronger.