The Philosophical Runner

I was talking to an old friend yesterday and he asked me what I'd do after I achieved (he's very optimistic) my goal of running 10k under an hour. He asked whether I'd do a half-marathon after or even a marathon. Frankly I doubt I'd do either. I can't see myself running past an hour (hence the whole running 10k in less than an hour goal!) because I can imagine getting very very bored. I do have the attention span of a 5 year old kid.

Nonetheless, after I finished talking to him, I sat down and had a little bit of a panic attack. What do I do after the run in October? Run it again? Run it faster? Do another run? Run a longer distance? Stop running altogether and get back to watching a lot of tv (in fairness, I did lose a lot of weight doing nothing)?

I kid you not, I actually freaked out because I couldn't see what other running activity I was going to do beyond the 10k run. Of course, in the process of completely overanalysing everything, I started thinking about my attitude in life...yes, sometimes shallow thoughts do end up being a whole study about the depths of my soul (or just a discovery session in the kind of person I am)...

I realise I've never really lived life for the moment. I always need to have a picture of what I want to have and then I try to twist my life to that ideal. But in doing so, I tend to focus on all the bad things that happen in the here and now and completely take any good things for granted. I fret over how the bad things now would completely ruin the future dream, never taking into consideration that dreams could change. I go into relationships thinking about whether the guy would make a good husband or father (I know, I'm scary like that) and then any little thing that doesn't fit into my self-created dream devastates me. Enjoy the moment? How can I when I'm busy worrying about what'll happen in 10 years!

Today I run 5k again. I'll try to enjoy it for what it is and not how it's part of something big. It's a small step in the right direction I suppose, and maybe someday the personality I train as I'm running will be the personality I have as a person. This has become a much bigger project than I envisioned!