Running to What End

Thanks, Brian! I was glad to do the run. Good job to you as well!

After a couple of weeks off, I ran again today. It was really terrific. I didn't push for distance, but
ran a nice, relatively effortless 4k in the brilliant moonlight of October. Somehow, my iPod has vanished. I suspect a two year old is somehow implicated, but perhaps I lost it as a symbolic gesture closing off the season.
The experience has made me think about the instrumental quality of running. I have a preference for not driving my performance with short term goals, and would rather run because I find it enjoyable, or because it is good for me in the long term, and I want to continue to be around in light of a ferocious family history with heart disease. Even these goals, however, feel like long-term versions of the short term goals. Some part of me wants to be entirely driven by a more qualitative consideration, such as running lends a thoughtful tenor to my day. Another part of me wonders what my real objection is to considering this activity as a means to an end.