I hated running. My joints hurt, weird muscles ached, I breathed heavy and felt like I was always going too slow. I did feel I was missing something. Running is the third most common human activity after crawling and walking. (I did no research on that but I feel it’s true enough for this post) and there must be some enjoyment for all of these people to do it.
Then, I read a little of “Born to Run“. It all made sense to me. Western humans, in their ego centric race for technology, literally ran smack into the law of unintended consequences fueled by some amazing marketing campaigns. I did not know how to run.
Then I picked up Barefoot Running and it made even more sense. 90 days later (90 EASY days later, no p90x) I just easily completed a 2 mile barefoot run and was inspired to write this post. I used to be inspired to sit around after running 2 miles.
So far, I have learned four important things from my barefoot running practice.
- Running does not have to be a chore if you pay attention to what you are doing, step by step
- I dont have to listen to music (I still do occasionally), because there are all sorts of things to enjoy around me.
- Like a child, I have fun doing the most essential and repetitive of human tasks. when I don’t, I am doing something wrong and fix it. I pay attention now.(See lesson 1)
- All of the tools that “Made me better” were actually inhibiting me.
It’s amazing that the simplest of things is actually indicative of how to improve the rest of my modern life.