- stop thinking I am going to be Usain Bolt. It’s never going to happen at least now, tomorrow, or next week.
- avoid comparing myself to myself. If I won, I beat myself. In every breathing pattern I try to compose to get a faster run, I fish my phone on my tiny zipper pocket and slow down to look at it and then get pissed off.
- leave my playlist alone in the middle of the run. This Saturday afternoon I listened to Robyn’s album, and when one song stopped being a bop I switched to Michael Jackson. But then I thought, he allegedly molested young men. Is my act of downloading Thriller on my phone constitutive of my condonation to the terrible practice of sexual politics, of predators? But the key word is ‘allegedly,’ so can I, for now, groove to his opening track Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’? Am I succumbing to the toxicity of callout culture? So I switched to Maroon 5, the album that precedes Thriller, then switched to MUNA, in which I only know one song, then switched to Carly Rae. Then on, I stopped complaining.
- avoid waving at children younger than 12 years old. I get mostly stink eyes.
- make sure I do not need to pee in the middle of running. As a hypochondriac (undiagnosed though, but I would like to ask my doctor whether I really suffer from hypochondriasis, because the symptoms are showing) guy with a crippling anxiety, with a deep worry that my skinny build entails my lack of resistance and stamina, I drink liters of water before running. I’m afraid of kidney infections. I’m afraid of liver cirrhosis, of heart attacks, dehydration, and all diseases known to mankind. So going back to peeing, I almost always pee under a coconut tree. That’s gross.
- lament not on my body image. Enough said, but it had made me conscious whenever people say I look skinny, sick, or whatever. I’ll write a separate article about this. Catch my artillery, you annoying body-shamers!
- allot time for warm-up exercises. I’m always too excited or too late.
- allot time for stretching. I always forget this.
- favor morning runs than afternoon runs because more road accidents happen in the afternoon.
- not roll out of bed in early morning if I just want to cancel my schedule. I should always remember the psychosomatic benefits of exercise, because yes, the human body is self-healing.
- not do this for anybody but for me.
- stop pitying on myself, that the more I run, the more I think of solitude and nothingness.
- not forget the things God does to shock me. Example, one Saturday, I met young kids who ran with me. Then the rain that washed me, or the sun bursting.
- delete the feelings/notions of ennui, existential dread, death, illness, broken hearts. I should shut off painful memories that are even more painful than breaking my ACL.
*I hate it when my musings border on sad porn but can’t help with what’s running on my mind. But this is not me asking for some sympathy or help, but to release the germ inside my mind. Spontaneously. It angers me to think that running is supposedly a mindfulness exercise—an opportunity to empty the container—but I end up ruminating on the extreme. How’s your running this week?
July 20, 2019
Distance: 10.15 kilometer
Duration: 01:07:32
Est. Calories: 640
Kloyde A. Caday 