During a long run on Sunday (16 miles!) I overheard another runner talk about how he says the rosary as he’s running to take his mind off running. My first thought was that I don’t want to take my mind off my running. My second, more honest, thought was that I frequently have my mind in other places when I’m running.
Heck, I frequently have my mind in other places when I do almost anything.
When I run with a friend, my attention is mostly on the conversation. When I run alone, I sometimes play silly games to pass the time. This morning, I counted blue shirts, and then I pitted yellow shirts against red shirts. (Red won easily.) I tired of the game when I started a green vs. purple competition, because I noticed that my eyes and my sense of justice were fighting. (Eg. the shirt looked yellow, but it definitely had at least a little blue in it, which made it officially green.)
Then I decided to smile at people and see if they smiled back. Mostly they didn’t, probably because they couldn’t see my eyes under my hat, so they didn’t know I was looking at them.
Then I decided to just look at people and notice them. Suddenly, I was getting a lot of eye contact. Good lesson for me. I wonder how many times I’ll have to do that lesson before I remember it.
On the way out of the park, I noticed for the first time the gorgeous ironwork on many of the brownstones in the first block. The second block had gargoyles, but not much ironwork, and the buildings were taller and not as beautiful. I have walked and run down those blocks hundreds of times, but never really compared them, or checked out some of the details. Where IS my mind most of the time? Where do I put my attention?
I frequently work with my singing students on where they put their attention. If they are focused on specific things like the text or the pitch or the feel of a legato line, they sing better. Perhaps it’s time to find a good focus point for my runs, if I want to be a better runner.
