Sanity found

This past week has been a crazy one, to say the least. It's been full of late nights, early mornings, and long and stressful days in between. Although hard work can sometimes be energizing and exciting, as the week wore on and I missed several opportunities to run and cycle, I realized that I really do need a solid 30 to 40 minutes of blood-pumping, sweat-inducing, borderline-painful activity at least every other day to feel like myself. It was therefore with much delight that I woke up this morning, looking forward to my first run since Monday. I didn't care that I could have used another hour of sleep. I wasn't bothered by the fact that it was pouring rain outside. I ignored my almost-completely-removed-from-my-foot-toenail (I give it five more days of attachment to this body).

By the time I actually got out the door, the rain had tapered to a drizzly mist. I ran seven miles at a not-so-bad pace. It felt comfortably hard, and entirely therapeutic. But the best thing about my run this morning was that the hundreds of other Manhattanites, with whom I normally share the road, stayed away. Apparently the rain scared them off, which was entirely their loss and my gain. I saw only a handful of dedicated runners out this morning, and barely noticed them, anyway. By the time I rounded the North woods around mile five, it was like running through my own, private rainforest. It was utterly peaceful.

Over the last few months, I've run with my iPod less and less. This wasn't a conscious decision; I simply started leaving it at home more frequently. Although I'm not one of these holier-than-thou runners who thinks that running with music is simply an abomination of the sport, and although I'm still not quite at the point where I could forgo music on a 2+ hour long run, I have come to appreciate running to the tune of my own steps and the beat of my own breath.

I realize, on weeks like this, that running always seems to bring me back. This morning was the perfect start to the weekend. Thank you, Manhattanites, for being so afraid of a little rain.