Finding myself

I have to say that local races rarely make me emotional. Yes, the big travel runs or important milestones make me a little teary eyed, but as a general rule running a half does not ususally produce deep feelings for me. The more you run, the more you concentrate on other things aside from the reality that you are constantly pushing yourself to run, the less time you spend actually reflecting on the epic-ness of the journey. I try and stay in the moments as much as possible. I have to remind myself to stop and enjoy the process. Enjoy the simple act of running outside. Enjoy the sights, smells and people around me. This is what it is all about after all. However, you never know exactly when or what might trigger a moment of contemplation. I mean, you are running for 13 miles so a lot of things go thru your mind in this time span. This is a long time to push your body at a high level of blood pumping activity.

I had such a moment on Saturday. It was a small, brief moment, but I am still thinking about it so it must have been slightly impactful. I cannot say enough about the importance of proper music selection. A song can make or break a mood, a streak, a feeling of energy and stamina. Lately I have become bored with my music. I added 5 new songs to the mix this last weekend and when those songs played it gave me an extra boost of energy and instantly reminded me how outdated my other music is. Reminder to myself to get some more stinking new music added before my next half. Seriously, very important.

However, this is not a new song nor a new sentiment, but when Avicil’s, “Wake Me Up” came on and the lyrics, “All this time I was finding myself, and I didn’t know I was lost,” spewed out of my ear buds suddenly it felt like a ton of bricks hit me. It was a random moment, a random convergence of mood, music, the stars and the moon aligning to produce this profound moment for me. I think it was in part of that pleasure/pain threshold where I was feeling good that I was pushing thru it all and enjoying the moment. It was like suddenly the words could not have been truer. There is not a single activity or time in my life where I have felt more at home or more like me than when I am there running. Yes, sometimes it sucks something awful. Sometimes it is torturous and I want to quit. But in the same breath it is the most magical freeing experience of my life. The more I do it, the more I realize how ridiculously important this is in my life. How much I was born to do this. Yeah, yeah, I am not fast. I am not some magically perfect born distance queen. I am not even sure my body type was made for running. None of that matters.

What matters to me is how much I have seemed to find myself and my place in this world the past couple months. Well, it’s been brewing for a whole year, but I feel especially in my element when I am running, partaking in the organized races. And then that song came on and I got slightly emotional. It was perfection. Those simple quite moments where it’s just me on the road against myself, and I realize that my whole life has led to these moments. That my whole life I have been searching for something greater, I was finding myself, finding my place in this crazy world and the whole while I was oblivious to the fact that I was so unsettled. In a nutshell, all this time I was finding myself and I didn’t know I was lost. I find myself feeling less and less lost with every weekend activity and adventure, with every mile I log in the great outdoors. Slowly but surely the little gaps in my heart and filing in. Either that or they become infinitely less significant because everything else seems so blessed. Blissful moments and realizations are the true reason that running has touched my life in such a profound way. These are the moments that simply cannot be duplicated.