What to say? There is something rattling around up there.
I know if I go more than a few days without running, i.e.
hard running, aerobic exercise, my brain feels sluggish. How do you mind your
life when your brain is dulled?
Some of that comes down to what we call spirit. But really
nothing would happen if not for the release of those delicious biochemical that
are stirred when the body is pushed. It’s a different result from the passion
that you feel in the arms of a lover, the cut and thrust of an idea shared with
your best friend, the feeling of the curtain going up on your favorite play, TV
series or movie.
Which is to say that mental fitness as it relates to running
is a physical thing. Feeling mildly depressed before a run and, more often than
not, five miles of running – not jogging but running – and you’re feeling
better. Cold and flu season? That too can knock you off your pins. Feeling a
little punk before a run? Four miles on the treadmill and you can actually
sense the malaise lifting, the healthy athlete’s body doing its job, ridding
you of the virus that so easily enters the mind as depression in the strong
cold of deep winter.
Knock on wood, but I literally can’t remember when it was I
was last felled by the flu or a bad cold. Is it all because of running, this
purchase I have on physical and mental fitness? Seriously, I couldn’t tell you.
But I’m not about to take the chance and find out. Suffice to say that four
decades ago I unwittingly gave myself a gift that I will cherish as long as it
stays with me: the gift of running for my life.
Next: Running for Your Life: Why a Journal?
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