"Time and Distance"

Are only states of mind and are always relative. 

When we got back in town today Claudette decided to go for a run.  She told me she was just going to do the little, wee block.  The route  she was referring to is the 7.3 kms that go by the front of our house.  What's interesting is that this is the very same block she has run almost every day for the last 5 years, and which was previously known simply as "the block".  How did it become the little, wee block?  A state of mind!

She has gradually build up her running over the last couple of months in preparation for Around the Bay, such that now she is regularly running 20K at a time.  Not just the distance, but the time it takes to run it has changed perspective.

And it's always about time isn't it?  How do we "spend" our "time"?  Time flies when you're having fun and crawls when you're not, and yet, in what seems like a total contradiction we want it to go slower, not faster. 

The thing I have discovered, and maybe it's one of the reasons I enjoy this endurance sport thing, is that when I'm out there for an hour or two, that while not standing still, time at least takes a "time out".  Once I have committed to a long workout and I'm into it, I lose the sense of time passing.  Strange perhaps since during the workout I am acutely aware of the clock itself.  The clock however has ceased being a chronometer, and instead become simply a fitness meter. It's hard to explain really but when I do a long bike or run I am invariably surprised when, upon return, I check the time of day.  It's like the world kept turning but I was oblivious to it.  A state of mind!

The other thing that occurs to me is that I only experience this feeling of timelessness outside.  I don't get it in the pool, or while sitting on the bike downstairs.  Kind of weird eh?  I suppose there's probably another message in there though, and it sure helps explain while I would happily go and run for 2 hours outside in sub zero weather before I would run for 20 minutes on the stupid treadmill.  Kind of an enlightening thought actually.... an "aha" moment! A state of mind!

Can I confess that I feel very good about my  post today.  I actually inpsired myself a little bit and would dare to hope that I have done the same for you.  Think about it.  Any time you may spend exercising outside may indeed not be time "spent"  at all, but rather just...yah, you got it!  A state of mind!

7.5 km run, 36 mins

"Not he is great who can alter matter, but he who can alter my state of mind"---Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in"---Henry david Thoreau

Love
Peter