With Winter upon us in North America, the DC area has entered a particularly ugly time of year. We just had our first snow this past week, followed by temps in the 40’s. The result is the brown and grey colors that cover the area until Spring. When combined with the shorter days, I’m left in a general funk.
Normally I turn to running as a mental release but that becomes difficult during the week when it’s dark when I leave for work and dark when I return. As a result, I am running more on the weekends (almost 20-miles over two days) and tempting injury.
Today I ran about 11-miles at a leisurely average pace of 7:50/mi. My main reason for going out was the elusive search for an attitude adjustment. Work has been increasingly stressful (do I hear a faint voice yelling mid-life crisis) and the lack of sun has just compounded my doldrums. Conditions when I went out were as seen in the picture with temps 38-40. While nothing to look at, the environment was perfect for a long run, even if my mindset wasn’t.
To help focus my thoughts, I took Steve Runner and Phedippidations 125: Running Legend Billy Mills with me. Billy’s story is very inspirational and I recommend everyone giving it a lesson. Around 4.5-miles in, some traditional Native American music was playing and I looked up to see a very large, fog encroached field with a beautiful farmhouse sitting in the distance. At that instance it occurred to me I had been looking at my problems all wrong. Instead of the ugliness I felt around me and professional dissatisfaction, things were very pretty and opportunities abound. Life was just different then what I might normally expect. Then before I had a chance to let that sink in, my view became obstructed by construction on a new housing development, office buildings and large parking lots. So much for my enlightenment. It appeared that the elusive attitude adjustment would have to wait for another day.
Back in my state of disillusionment, the remaining 7 miles or so went by in a mental numbness. My body guiding me along a familiar route and my thoughts focused on absolutely nothing. I wish I could say that I ended with some inspiration but the stars just were not in the proper alignment I suppose. Instead of the 180-degree personality flip I was hoping for, I returned with, maybe, a 90-degree change for the positive – better than nothing but remaining less than satisfactory.
This time of year is always difficult for me for a variety of reasons. I am thankful that I have a positive outlet for the stress (running), but the opportunities to get out there are not as frequent as I would like (running in the dark on snowy/icy streets is not advisable) and I feel the need for real change, new challenges, but I’m short on ideas. Hopefully something comes to me soon.
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