Random Musings from the trail.
So I got this new running watch with more features than a teenager has zits on their face. It has a heart rate monitor, measures speed, cadence, strides and on and on and on. The best part is that it can tell you how much you suck at running without stepping on your toes. It just displays your numbers nonchalantly... sometimes even with cool music. I have a soft corner for being treated gently, especially about my weaknesses. So I really like it.
Armed with this zanny machine wrapped around my wrist, with full conviction that it may also be able to run a few miles if need be, I decided to take on two running loops together in one go. Never mind that each one in itself kicks my butt no end. I put on my dancing shoes with some swag that day. I knew how Dick Tracy myst have felt.
My regular loop which was about 10 miles and the Coppermine run which is about a 7 mile round trip. I decided to do both together since they are nicely placed logistically.
I love running. I really enjoy the rythm of the foot fall, the body smoothly cutting through air and thoughts effortlessly cutting through clutter. I find the escape comforting and energizing. It is also a great time for totally ramdom musings. This time they got triggered beacuse it started raining accompanied with some distant thunder and lightening. I looked up to the sky and saw a flash. Immediately the mind started racing as to whjether I should stop.. well racing. Where would I hide if I did stop. There was just the towpath and some trees. I realized I was wearing a cap made of some artificial material. Would it create a charge rubbing with air particles and water droplets and draw the lightening bolt right to my head. May be I should take the cap off. But then I remembered the experiment that I did with my daughter by rubbing her hair with the comb and they stood up. Electric charge, potential energy...the buildup...my watch showed an increased heartrate...my pace quickened too...
Isn't this exactly what is happeneing up in the clouds a few miles away... air particles rubbing against each other, against water droplets and the buildup of charge. Millions of volts of raw energy looking to unleash its entire power over an unsuspecting tree, or head...Lightening now seemed to be getting closer. My watch buzzed. Somehow it knew I thought. But that was only a reminder of a mile done. Phew...
But really, how does the monster up there know where to hit. Something about Richard Feynman's biography flashed in my head. How does a moving projectile find the easiest path out of a trillions of other options it has. Something about Quantum Mechanics. I remembered reading chapter 1 of his book all the three time I got it out of the library. Never quite graduated to chapter 2. So I had to abandon that line of thinking. But the question still remained. How does it know where to strike? Perhaps it finds the shortest gap to jump. Now therefore, it followed, that my quickened pace may actually be creating more charge on my cap and painting a bigger target on it. My watch beeped again... I shuddered... something about number of steps. My daughter had messed up all its settings . I vowed never to let her play with the watch again.
I slowed down nevertheless. Thankfully the thunder and lightening calmed down as if on a cue.
Relieved and in the zone, I re-engaged with the run. It was a nice summer afternoon. Nature exploding with life everywhere. Every nook and corner around the tow path, lush green. Trees bursting with leaves. Some of them having leaves sticking out of their trunks directly. What is it that makes it all happen? Some biologist may well be able to give the answer regarding the mechanics of it. But what is the internal drive that so pushes forth. So much grass, so many flowers, such unbridled abundance of everything in nature. What is the force that is driving everything to reach out and jump over and across as much as they can, as fast as they can almost greedily. Like that lightening bolt, pregnant with so much electric charge wants to burst out and across the smallest difference in potential, what force compels all of life to keep pushing forward so energetically, even relentlessly. Lets call it the life force I figured. You know the one that you really come to know by its absence in an otherwise seemingly perfect dead body. That link between all the splendor of life, of dreams, aspirations, regrets and dead wood.
When we marvel at the complexity of a brain I thought, we are merely looking at the capabilities of a computer chip in a way. Brain is much more complex than a computer chip understandably, but the forces that have forged it are trillions of times more complex and varied than what the brain actually is. Just like a chip manufacturing plant is by orders of magnitude more complex than a computer chip.
So what are the forces that form life? We know some for sure. Gravity, Strong and Weak nuclear forces and electromagnetic force. That's all we know. How about Lifeforce, love, compassion, intent? Those and millions more have to have attribution for the magnificence of life I thought. Mile 5.
The thing about running it that it can lend itself to a meditative state quite effortlessly. That is if you understand meditation to be akin to cessation of thought, as I do. Foot fall, breath, foot fall, breath, ground passing by and next thing you know that 20 minutes have passed. It is therefore I believe that there is such elation at the end of it. The mind emerges back from a rested state wherein some noise of thinking has at-least quietened down temporarily. I know about the harmones that are released and so on too. That explains part of it I think. Really though I don't care about the correctness of this theory. I know you don't either. So we can move on.
Miles passed... I was now approaching the dreaded Coppermine. It turned out to be not so bad. I was coping up quite nicely. May be, just may be, the fear of being in a failed physical state 8-9 miles from home, unleashed some reserves. Or perhaps the graphic image of lying dead on Coppermine, without enjoying the full July 4th weekend did the trick. Except for making the wrong turn at the only place where a wrong trun was possible, I kept plodding along quite nicely.
It was a good 17.5 miles by the time I got back. My watch kept me good company. It was a nice run I thought, with some random musings thrown in. Totally pointless perhaps...But thats OK. It was just a run.
