I Hear Voices When I Run

Part of the challenge of effective communication is in deciding the status of the voices in the conversation. And I'm talking only about communication with myself!

Now that I can actually run for more than 40 minutes at a time, it's a bit of a lark to note how quickly into a run the voice sharing some version of "I am tired," or  "I am sore," or "I haven't felt that pain in my foot before," or "Maybe, let's just walk today" makes itself heard.  Sometimes it's about 17 seconds in, sometimes the voice morphs its message and haunts me for up to 10 minutes. 

What is that voice? Where does the laziness come from and how did it develop its rhetorical skills? Given that we agree that keeping running is a worthwhile goal, how should that voice counselling the alternative be dealt with? Persuaded? Ignored? Crushed? 

When I do push through and quiet that voice, what happened to it? Was it convinced or shamed or did it simply retreat and gather its arguments for next time? 

And why can I count on a next time?

My tentative conclusion is that running touches off a bit of a civil war inside me, a civil war that another part of me is able to watch and draw conclusions from. 

Today, I ran from downtown into the river valley and along the water and over the LRT bridge. When I climbed back up the river bank and walked back to the YMCA,  I heard the demolition crews undoing the old Bank of Montreal building on the corner of Jasper Ave. and 101St. And the scene struck me in a new way. 

The building's concrete frame, seemingly so solid, was being pulverized into rubble. So that something new could be built. 


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