Today it was a while after I went running on the road. Mainly because it is the monsoon season in India and i hate runnign in when it rains. There are multiple reason for it. Few I can think of is since I wear glasses they get wet and it is difficult for me to see whats coming from all the sides. Specially when you stay in a metro city and you are running on road, it gets quite unpredictable what might come from what side. And I am not only talking of vehicles. So do I stop running in this season. Of course not. If I stop running I would stop living. I run on treadmills. I dont like running on treadmills because all though you are running it gives you a sense of stillness and that is because you run on the spot. The air inside a gym is controlled. In most of the gyms there is blaring noise coming from speakers. You don’t have choice of what you want to listen. There is no fragrance of trees or flowers. There is no whiff of heat coming from the road and you cannot hear your own heavy breaths. The view doesn’t change and you constantly stare out of the window. Overall there is no adrenaline rush when you are running on treadmill and your sense organs are as good as dead.
Today morning after I went running on the road and what a blissful experience it was. I woke up before dawn as I had to attend an online meditation session. Usually I sleep after I attend the session but I had decided yesterday itself that I woudl go for a run on teh road today. I went out at 730 to my usual place and did pre run exercises. Activated my GPS and started running. At the start it felt as if I was running with a weight on my legs. I felt heavier. It was odd. Its not something which I have felt before. I ran for 500 meters and thats when I felt my usual. I was on the road which is my favourite surface to run. It was dry. It hadn’t rained last night. I ran on my usual route which is a loop of 2 kms. I could feel the tarmac and concrete beneath my feet. The view was changing every second. The school I usually pass by had already started which meant I did not encounter the rush of parents and kids to reach school. The sun was up and it was humid. I was getting tired but I was also enjoying the run. I said to myself it was worth feeling tired but the joy of running was back. I said I am not going back to a closed gym to run on treadmill. I will have to go to gym for weights but definitely not going to hop onto the treadmill to run. Unless there was no other option.
I ran at the pace less than I run on treadmill and i also covered half the distance I cover on treadmill but there was no regret. After I finished my run I went to the garden and did post run stretches. It was oon lush green grass. Because of sunshine and clouds on the opposite side of the sun, the grass was looking green and delicious. I felt so great. I said to myself running is just not about clocking miles and outdoing your previous mileage. It is more than that. It is like meditation and the natural place to run is on outdoors and not indoors because you have a choice. So lets make best use of the option which the nature has given us.