CLEAN EFFORT

Running is an activity that is full of insecurities, at least for me. Looking back on 36 years of doing it in some fashion, I can recognize that I have often trained to 'prove it' to myself. Illustrate my ability to endure for the sake of enduring. To show myself my fitness was at a level to accomplish my goals. It was an odd duality between my body and its performance and my mind and it's belief and trust of that body. Perhaps its a function of taking time away from the activity, revisiting my relationship and what I want out of it that has allowed me to become more aware of that habit. The habit to show myself I haven't slowed down as much as I had feared, that I haven't lost a capacity I once had. But I still find that my find will trend towards challenging the body to show it what it can do. Not the challenge of seeing what I can do on that day for the sake of putting out a challenging effort, but a 'check in' to see who I am now in running as if it was a value judgment. The awareness of this tendency helps in tempering it and also allows for me to find an intention for the days run that will replace the record keeping and checking in on performance. The breath and the footfalls have been a default when my mind hops on those clouds of self doubt and frustration. It can provide an anchor to allow me to stay put and not need to ride each one on it's wild ride of questioning. Of course I've lost some capacity and performance at my age. I also have no idea how much or what the next months will bring. The future is unwritten and all I have is my practice today.
I write this hoping to be towards the end of yet another illness this winter and it's humbled me greatly seeming to take the momentum of last weeks sound training and feeling of strength and reducing me to a coughing jogger with the need to sit down after doing daily tasks I could days ago do for hours. That is out of my hands and I need to accept and work with it. What will not be productive is to prove to myself I'm not hindered by it, nor to accept some dramatic defeat and pull up all plans and quit. I'll go out today and find the breath (even if in between coughing) and match them to my footfalls and find a rhythm that matches what my capacity is today. That is all I can do other than meeting myself in the rest of my days where I am.