What I do mean though is the next time you go out for a run leave the phone, the headphones, the compression socks, and whatever else you wear for performance or tracking your progress and just go run.
Recently I have been doing a few runs during my training cycle with nothing but my shorts, shoes, and shirt, and let me tell you those are the days I think I am having my best runs. I am not focused on a clock, I am not focused on what song is playing in my ears, and instead I am focused on the road ahead of me. I am not saying you need to do this for every run. I still use my headphones on my long runs and I still track my speed and progress on most runs, but every once in a while it feels so good to just get out there and run. I would assume that most of you are like me and if I told you to go run 4 or 5 miles you would already have a course mapped out, so next time just go to one of your courses and run “Naked”. Zone out on the course, and remember why you started running. Forget about the time it takes you to finish, forget about your mile splits, and just go run.
I try to think back to when my father’s generation ran and I know at the time they didn’t have fancy Garmin watches. They didn’t have shoes that were designed for each foot type. Now here is the crazy part…..they were still able to run, crazy I know. Sometimes I think that we get so focused and wrapped up in the technology that surrounds running that I think a lot of us forget why we started running. I think we start to obsess on beating times so much that we aren’t really enjoying our run. That one day a week I run “Naked” is that one day that brings me back to where it all started. I remember the reasons I started to run, I didn’t start to keep beating times and I didn’t start to stress myself over hitting a PR. I started because I saw something that my father was doing and he enjoyed it, and I thought maybe I would get the same enjoyment. Do I like to compete? Do I like to run races? Hell Ya I do, and when I am out there I want to beat you, but that isn’t why I started running. I started running for the love of the sport, and even if it is just one day a week that I get to have that feeling again of just running free, it is worth it.
