11/30/2022: 4 Miles
Not much to report on this one, but it is worth mentioning that I’m shifting my philosophy with running a bit yet again. Recently I’ve been telling myself that I want to aspire to not need to run every day when it comes to the times when I can enjoy myself enough without running. I felt like, if I could, happiness would be more satisfying to grasp without needing to rely on running to fully enjoy life. But now I’m kind of realizing that running, at least in moderation, just feels good, and it makes the happy days even happier. So I’m done with turning running into a resignation of the quality of a given day, because the days that I run are the days that I am perhaps the most myself.
Besides, it just freaking feels good!
12/1/2022: 8.57 Miles
So anyway back to the run club, where I’m grasping the rhythm a bit more each time and really felt like I was able to naturally flow from one conversation to another this week. An interesting thing that struck me about this run, however, was how poorly running allows for meeting new people a lot of the time. Don’t get me wrong, I really have enjoyed talking to all of these people and I’ve gotten to know many of them quite well while running with them, but it’s much more challenging to only know a person through running. Running with someone is best when you’ve fully grown to understand their rhythm, not only with pace and movement but also with conversation. The cadence of a person’s words can come across quite naturally when you know them well, but when someone goes quiet on a run that you don’t know that well, it becomes really difficult to tell if they’re thinking, focused, winded, distracted… It’s a lot to unpack while you’re also trying to get to know who they are and what they do. So maybe running isn’t the ideal form of socializing that I always thought it was; maybe it was just a good social outlet for me to enjoy time with friends I had made when we weren’t running. Fancy that.
It’s also hard to remember a person’s face when you’re not really looking at them while you’re talking to them a whole lot. Even so, running can be a great way to meet people or grow bonds with others; it just can’t be the only time you spend with a person if you really want to know them, I think. But who knows, I could be proven wrong again with that quite easily. I’m only 23, and everyone knows that you’re not right about everything until you’re 25. Ugh. I can’t wait. Tim’s longingly still running towards 25.
Haha! I’m enjoying your exploration!