True Happiness

Dear AFC:
My father told me---long, long time ago---that to be truly free, one should find an activity that makes one happy and do not depend on anyone else. I imagined this would be like a little window where one can walks towards (whenever you feel like it) and contemplate beauty.
For my father, this was math. Those math books were able to transport the man and set him truly free. And, being his daughter I though this was science for me. But my relationship with science hardly depend only on me. While it is true, that I can do almost whatever i feel like during my working hours; it is also true, in the real engineering part of science lays down its application and that forcefully involves interacting with people.
Not that I hate people (and would be the problem if I did) is that then it does not set you free.
N asked a few days back; why was I so happy.
Because I run--I said.
It is incredible how so small things can makes us happy---she said.
And it is true. So small. Till today, I do not know, if running is the "thing" that sets me free. I wish it was not something so trivial and mundane. I would rather be free by solving PDEs. But just between us, it does it. Running frees me and for a moment I can relieve my soul of my heavy self and be alone with my true me. Just me and my pace. But I still like PDEs.
Love,
G.

Coming back

I am getting back to writing here. I never really kept it before because mostly I thought it was a bit silly to write for noone to read. I kept thinking about writing every now and then but it seemed a little nonsense, since most of the stuff I write here I do not really want to say to anyone, and I have not asked anyone to follow this.
But doing this health assesment at work; there was a question that was related to stress management. It was "do you use any stress management techniques such as: blah, blah, writing, blah blah?" Then it hit me: this is de-stressing. I always thought running was what I do to destress but it seems that writing will help too. Overall because I do not have any friends I can confide here at the moment.
I will be doing this. Thanks for reading me, Mr. Noone!
Perhaps the most interesting thing in my life, at least for me, is that I have finally been able to drive to work in the highway. This is something that for some reason I am very scared of. I think I am more scared of not-dying in an accident than dying. Like becoming handicapped and needing someone. Perhaps that says a lot about me.

the runner's hello

So today I had a 3 mile run due. I was feeling tired and crappy and I struggled with the idea of just sitting on my couch and do nothing, or run, but I was brave and went for the latter. When in doubt, the right answer is always yes because running does make me feel better. Every time.

I got back to my 9min/mile pace today just out of the blue. That makes me really happy. I have been kind of slow (slow = 10-12min/mile). But today I felt full of energy and I went back to "my pace". I felt like flying.

While running today, and as it happens many many times, I intercept another runner. It always amuse me a runner (almost) always say hello to other runners. More so than walkers. Much more (I am a walker, too). And it makes me feel that we share a secret. How (even that we do not look like) we are secretly having fun. How this is perhaps the best part of our day.

Monday

I am back from my mini-vacation and dead tired all day. I have decided that today will be a rest day and tomorrow evening only I will resume training. Three miles. Easy.
On the way back, yesterday, I found myself listening perhaps to the most beautiful love song: Sinceramente tuyo, from Joan Manuel Serrat. Just sharing here.

Hello world

So I was thinking for a time now to start writing a blog. Not because I felt I had something interesting to say but because I felt I did need to say something. To someone, in hope that this will ever be read. I wanted to write about running, and how running has changed my life. I am not running expert, and I consider myself more of a jogger of a runner. I am in no way authority to write about running, to write about anything. That is in part one of the reasons why I did hesitate to start writing from the beginning.
But today it hit me. Many many years ago, my father told me that one should find something that makes you happy that do not depend on anyone else. He was a rather solitaire man and it seems that the humankind had not been too kind to him after all. This statement burned my mind and I remember you have wished when I heard it that he had a little more faith on people. I always thought that that one thing to me was science. However in the past few years, although this has been a source of satisfacction it has been a source of a lot of stress too.

But tonight after all, i realized: this is it. Running is that thing, that do not depend on anyone else that trully makes me happy. All the other voices turn off--I know how this sounds esquizo---andIi can finally hear myself. I feel I have something good, something worth it. I feel I can make it. Nothing---or noone---had consistently made me feel that way and I am so thankful for that. It would be a nightmare that such a power would be invested in other than myself. And that is it. Running. What running, jogging. So not pretentious. This is about running.

So, to put you up to speed. I am training to jog a marathon on Nov 6. That is, if I recall correctly 10 weeks from today. I had my long run this week and I am waiting to run a half-marathon for my next run.