Getting Outside

"My only hope was to plug into something bigger than my pulsing mind, to flail around outside rather than within me. God can't clean the house of you when you're still in it. So I went for a walk in the hills..." - Anne Lamott, Grace Eventually: Thoughts on Faith

After hitting my half-way point in the midst of a big three week build and falling into the motivation black hole , getting outside literally - and figuratively - was I needed this week.

First, I literally immersed myself in the outdoors throughout this week's quintessentially gorgeous North Carolina spring weather: a long walk (with no training goals!) through the neighborhood after dinner, a 40-mile solo ride on one of my favorite routes through rural Orange and Alamance counties, several hours of disc golf on one of our most wooded local courses, a gourmet grilled dinner on the back porch amid the tiki torch glow. Simply glorious.

But perhaps more importantly, I let my mind and spirit outside for some play too! Loading new songs onto my iPod (thanks Ray!), adapting a prescribed workout to include some much needed yard work, simplifying my race schedule for the remainder of the year, allowing myself to simply rest all day on Monday - no guilt!, taking the time to finally finish a book that's been sitting on my bedside table for months, and just generally taking a break from reading, writing, and doing triathlon was just what the doctor ordered. I'm back now - physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Although it's literally a building with four walls, locks, alarms, and lots of rules, I think that Genesis Home actually allows the folks who live there to get outside too. It's a space where they can they can, as Anne Lamott says in the excerpt above, really plug into something bigger than their pulsing minds and get outside what they've always done, so that they can instead choose something else.

..and with that, I'm headed outside for a run!