I lost my mind this morning

I might as well admit it. I go to the local sports club most weekdays.

Working from home, spending most of my time at the computer, means that I need a break and I want to be active, so going to the club is ideal.

I swim a fair bit (a mile twice a week) and on other weekday visits I jog/run on the treadmill. I also endure other tortures on the cross trainer and exercise bikes.

On the treadmill I run for 25 minutes on an incline of about three percent, which is fine for the level of fitness I’m happy with.

Mostly I find that I’m anxiously watching the timer on the treadmill to see how long I’ve got left for that exercise. 2.5 minutes gone, great I’m a tenth of the way through! Ten minutes - fantastic almost half way there. It’s like my brain is focussing on powering my body along, almost step by step, minute by minute.

This morning was different.

Almost as soon as I set off on the treadmill, my mind drifted off thinking about this and that. I suddenly looked down at the timer and was amazed to see that I was at the thirteen minute mark already. Where had the time gone?

Back to the mental drifting until I saw that I had gone nineteen minutes, almost in the blink of the eye.

I wasn’t tiring, counting down the minutes to the end point at 25 minutes. I wasn’t willing my legs to get to the end of the exercise. I was motoring, my body working like clockwork, allowing my mind to drift away.

At 25 minutes, all was well so I carried on.

30 minutes and it was only common sense that made me stop. I could easily have carried on for I don’t know how long.

Ten years ago, I used to run most days for about 4 miles through a heavily wooded and very hilly army training area. I was very fit and almost invariably I’d get to the end of the run and suddenly almost wake up. I was at the end of the run already - where had I been, mentally, for the past forty five minutes?

Its a fantastic experience to have your body working in a well honed way, all systems working together, creating an effortless physical harmony that allows you to almost seperate your mind from your body.

I’m not sure what causes this state, but I think it only happens when you achieve a level of fitness that optimises the cardiovascular system to the physical exertion so that your muscles are therefore working optimally under those conditions too.

You are not forcing anything so your mind is free to wander at will rather than be required to keep things together.

I used to be able to tell if I was starting to go down ill, or I was tired, as my mind wouldn’t “fly away” whilst running. It seemed to be continually engaged in managing the physical systems - step by step, minute by minute.

So today was pleasing - maybe I’m getting pretty fit again!

Add comment June 14th, 2006 Written By: chris