Running from the future (into the present)
Today was run day
Even though I have been running since around 2015, I am not a runner. Really I’m not.
I ache at the thought of it.
Walking to the gym, I invent all sorts of excuses to avoid that treadmill.
Ooooh, whats that shooting pain in my toe?
Hmmm calves are a bit tender today.
Darn! I forgot my running socks…
I know. So lame. Especially that last one.
I have been using the Nike Running Club app to provide some structure for my runs - a plan - so I’m not just trudging along like everyone else. It has been great!
First, the music is not what I would choose. Think loud, doof doof, louder, more doof doof and more loud. It’s usually nothing I have ever heard of. The kind of thing they play in Abercrombie and Fitch which results in me stuffing tissues into my ears to the extreme embarrassment of my girls. Weirdly though the music is a good thing. It keeps me alert.
Second, the voiceover is what I can only describe as ‘Perky American’. I mean no offence to my US friends. I have many. It’s the kind of fantastic, upbeat, go get ‘em tone that I need. I picture an entourage of cheerleaders with pom poms and high kicks every time Coach speaks. Pathetically I need this motivation.
And finally there is no jargon. I don’t understand running speak. Run 5 mins at 10K pace or Maintain an optimum cadence of 135spm. WTF does all that actually mean? Whose 10km pace? I tried Mo Farrah’s marathon pace once. Plugged it into the machine and managed about two strides before I jumped off. I should say managed to jump off because it could have ended very badly.
On the topic of running jargon, here are a few you might enjoy:
Bonk - A sudden and extreme drop in energy during a run.
Runger - Extreme hunger after a long run
Streaker - Someone who runs every day
Anyway, my chosen run today was called “Finish Lines'“. Coach gives you a sentence (the line) and you have to finish it off over the next few minutes before he comes one with another.
About half way in, I lingered a while on this prompt:
If I could fast forward, it would be a year/five years/ten years because…….
I lingered because I naturally think about the future. I’m a planner. A list maker and ticker. A what do I need to do today/this week/this month-er. Projecting forwards and thinking about the “end state” is my jam. So let’s give this a go…
Fast forward one year from now…
Well I’ll hopefully be “fixed” This chronic stress that seems to be taking an age to leave my body will be gone and I’ll be back to normal again; I’ll finally have lost those stubborn few kgs and my belly will stop feeling wobbly;I will be able to run outside because this damn knee will have healed; I’ll be lifting over 100kg on deadlift, back to 140kg on hip thrust and hopefully 20kg on anything above the shoulders; I’ll be sustaining a decent income freelancing on different projects; I’ll have completed my book research and submitted a proposal or maybe started down the self publishing route.
Fast forward five years…
I’ll be on the cusp of my sixth decade. Will I have done everything I set out to do by that age? Well no, because I wont be a Partner in one of the largest consulting firms in the world. That was the OG plan but I left that corporate world a few months ago. Will I go back? Surely my portfolio career will have taken hold by then instead? I will 100% still be married. My brain cannot fathom any idea of life without Tone. I’ll obviously have published that book and maybe another - maybe the timing is right for the very first idea I had years ago?
Fast forward ten years….
In my mid sixties. Cannot compute. All I got to was that Tone and I would hopefully have some grandchildren.
By this time the run was into warm down and I had missed the other lines and stopped listening to Coach. Sorry Coach. I found myself still thinking on all of this as I cleaned the machine down and began my upper body exercises. In between idle nods and fist bumps to my fellow gym goers, my mind started to berate itself for thinking so far into the future. In fact I started to get more and more anxious.
A lot has happened over the last few years
It has brought negativity, sadness, frustration, aggression and anger. All that on top of peri-menopause and hair loss. At the start of this year I was in such a bad way that I detached myself completely. I went to Thailand - to a yoga and meditation retreat - to make some sense of what was happening and restore my health both mental and physical. I was holding on to the past and obsessing about what was going to happen next. What the retreat helped me to do, was to focus on the present.
I find this very hard in the same was as I can’t dolce far niente. In fact it fills me with dread. Now is happening so why focus on it? What do I actually focus on? How long do I sit and do nothing and just think about this moment? Define this moment? How long does that last? Am I doing it right now? But I have so much to do today? And then as quickly as the idea came to be in the here and now, the future takes over.
Buddhism teaches that life exists solely in the present moment. The past has already happened so don’d dwell on it. There is nothing you can do to change it. The future hasn’t happened yet so again why obsess or worry or try to hypothesize about it.
This is something we discussed time and time again in Thailand. Mastering it is the key to mindfulness. I have really tried to put it into practice since coming home. Yes there are still lists but they are gentle ‘to dos’ and not ever ‘must dos’. The ‘must’ dictates the timescale for me and so I have abolished it as much as I can.
So for the rest of the gym session, I answered no to one year, to five and to ten. Rather I opted to focus on the present. The quiet rhythm on loading weights, lifting weights, counting reps, counting sets and calming my anxious mind. One breath at a time.
What about you?
Would you fast forward a year, five or ten? Or are you firmly content in the now?