Feeling Down? Go For a Run

This week I have been feeling down. There is no one thing which has made me feel bad. Periodically I have moments when I am down. I have run twice this week, and today's was more about getting out and clearing my head. As I have said many times, one of the things running does for me is let me get out of my head for a while. I told Mark I needed to run....and I did.

Mark took our dog, Friday, and did a run/walk, as I went for a 40 some odd minute run on the Hagen Burke Trail in Carmel. It was a sunning Autumn day. Temps were in the low 60s and it felt wonderful out there. Off I went, and almost immediately I could feel the glum fading.

Not that a run can make everything better, but when your head is full of negative things, a run, especially on a day like to today, can help make your head less full of the bad stuff. I was looking around at the fall colors. I was feeling the warmth. I just felt good as I ran. I felt a release.

Since Mark had never been on the trail, I worried if he might get lost, so I cut short my run by a few minutes and headed back to meet up with him. He and Friday did take a wrong turn, but righted themselves. He looked like he was enjoying his walk. Friday looked happy to be out and about.

So what had been in my head that was no negative. Work issues of late, the pile of bills at home, dreading, for the first time the idea of getting older, and missing my mom. We are coming up on the anniversary of her passing, so it's always a sad time for me.

No, the run did not make any of those vanish, but it did help me clear my head and get out of the negative energy I had been in. Had I run longer, who knows, I could have solved all the problems of the world....or not.

In a funk? Go for a run.

Charlie