The woods are calling

Sundays may be one of my least favourite days of the week. Having put Saturday behind me, with all the careless running fun that it entails, there's usually little to look forward to. Trying to fill the day with equally fun activities to forget the dreary fact that Monday is just around the corner feels stressful, forced, hurried, like checking a box to make sure you've Seized The Day. What can I say? I love my weekends. Workdays, eh...not so much.

This week is not one I'm looking forward to. Some less-pleasant things have been taking place at work the last few days. Meetings that will probably turn ugly and a high burden of things that need to get done make me want to abscond to a tropical country and spend the rest of my life sipping cocktails with my bare feet buried in the sand. Run away. Fast.

Though with my snail-like speed they'd catch me before I even left our building.

So it was even more important today to Seize The Day. We usually go climbing on Sundays, but with the sun shining and the ice all but gone, I longed for a run in the woods. To clear my thoughts and to distract myself, to turn this Sunday into one of my beloved Saturdays, to try and pretend that I don't have a care in the world, I made for the forest. 

I ran in my VFF, partly because I need to get used to them again and partly because I run even more slowly than usual in them, and that's what I needed to do on my fifth consecutive day running. Slow down. Take it easy. My legs were tired, so not even my good old VFF could help with my running technique; I had to make a conscious effort to quickly lift my legs from the frozen, hard ground, lean forwards, take light steps. But my mind just wasn't into it.

It looked as if the trees were dancing on an ice-rink

The solitude I was seeking in the woods was impossible to find. The path was littered with orienteerers and other Sunday excursionists. There were two teenagers walking with pop music coming out of the speakers of their telephone. This spring's first run in the woods was far from the idyllic revelation I had imagined and hoped it would be. It was like wading through the crowds at a mall during sale season.

Still, I ran on and my legs got lighter and lighter. I left the woods and headed home, leaning forward the way I was supposed to. 6,5 km later I was back. A different kind of distraction awaited me. The mammoth of a novel I started over a month ago is slowly creeping towards its final conclusion. Only a hundred pages left out of 650. Maybe I'll finish it before my hair turns grey after all.