Running to fill a void

It’s approximately 4 more weeks or precisely 28 days to my half marathon and I am not sure if I am ready to run 13.1 miles as yet.

So, I slather on the sunscreen,  put my shoes on and step outside my door. Its 6.30 am and its 70 degrees here, what a perfect day for a run and a wonderful way to start my day. I hit the play button on my music and off I go.

I am such a creature of habit, every single day I set off in the same direction,  taking the same route to run. I want to change that, find a different way, I decide this is the day I am going to try a different way. I step outside the road and as habit would have, I start off in the same direction, but I catch myself in time and run in the opposite direction.

Like I have said before, I like running alone, I don’t find it painful to be alone, I actually enjoy the hour or two of running alone. As my friend says, “go run, after all you have a lot of foes you want to beat up in your head”.

I’ve had the tendency to be alone even when I was younger, my family would have these huge gathering and I would spend a few minutes of saying hello and to my parents dismay  I would lock myself in my room reading a book.

I could hear my cousins talking outside my door, trying to find out where I was or why I had disappeared, but I stayed silently in room till I could no longer hear their voices. I may not be as bad as that, but even now when I visit my family, I dread the extended family gatherings of small talk and pretend conversation.

My friends often ask me what I think about when I run, most often these are people who have never run long distances or short distances. The thoughts in my head drift from one thing to another. On sad days it might be things that made me sad and on other days it might things that bring me or brought me happiness and some days I run to be in a void, but that is almost impossible, because no matter what, there is always a thought passing through human minds.

As I was running I was stuck by a thought, that as I get older I have become more a creature of habit than before. I feel maybe it is age that has made me set in my ways, I don’t like my routine being disrupted, despite me trying hard to be accommodating and flexible, no wonder I run the same route or ride my bike the same route every day.

The only time I wish there was someone running with me is when I see this older couple running together every single day, she and he in step with each other, they run waving at me, making me wish for a brief moment that there was someone running along with me.

During a race there are thousands of people running with you, but yet I feel alone, I am not bound to keep up with anyone, it is still my pace and my world.

So I continue running alone, I think of things that make me smile, but generally I am not thinking of any one thing, my thoughts are like a cloud drifting away, as the sky remains the same. I keep running in my own nostalgic world and I feel pretty wonderful no matter what anyone else thinks.