Unloading The Weight of the World

I slept over 11 hours last night.  When I got up, I could still feel the weight of everything dragging me down.  I initially thought it was due to the last five days of running eight miles, on top of the preceding week of 8 mile runs.  It turns out that might not really be the case.  I've put a lot of weight on myself over the past 4 1/2 months, as I tend to do.  I care.  I want to make a difference.  That is a weight, that is a pressure. I've always been someone who seems to want to put the weight of the world on my shoulders, starting with my letter to President Johnson when I was nine years old, asking him to end the War in Vietnam.  Why should I expect to have changed, except that weight is now too much.  Today was proof of that.  There was no way that I was going to be able to run today, until, after talking to my wife, I realized that I have a way out of some of the pressure.  I've been writing about prioritizing.  I just have to do it!  The moment that I realized not only that I had to do it, but had some actual plans to make it happen, the weight almost instantaneously disappeared, to the extent that I now felt like getting in my 8 mile run.  I was able to complete my 6th straight day of 8 mile runs with nary a problem.  There are many lessons to be learned from this.

First and foremost, running every day, especially the type of solid 8 mile hilling run that takes me about 80 minutes to do, is healthy and therapeutic.  I'm anticipating that my body will absorb these daily runs in a way that I've never really done before.  I can already feel the difference.  I will take one day off, on every eighth day, in order to give my body a chance to recover.  It will be interesting to see how this works.  I almost took today off, but found it wasn't necessary after all.  I'm sure that days off will be important for my recovery and ongoing strengthening, it will just be interesting to see how it plays out.  In the meantime, I'd like my runs to contribute to the unloading of the weight of the world on me, rather than adding to it.  That was the truly fascinating aspect of today.  I thought that 5 days of running had put too much stress on me, but that wasn't where the stress had arisen, it had come from the pressure I'd been putting on myself.  When I let go of that pressure, running was not only fine, but it was what I wanted to do. Fascinating!

Over the next week, this will be my goal. To focus on what matters and how I can prioritize, and to let the things that don't rise to the top go.  In the meantime, I've got my daily run (although this week, Tuesday will be my day off).  I've also started blogging every day again.  It's also therapeutic, and will help to keep me grounded.  It's about the journey, not about specific goals.