This past week of running has been pretty good. I ran 8 miles on Tuesday - a swift jog to Koreatown and back. 4 miles on the treadmill at Swerve on Wednesday. I'm really not a big fan of the treadmill. It's so tempting to just step off. For me it's better to actually run a certain distance and have to run back home. Then I ran the big 18 on Friday - from Miracle Mile, through Hollywood (including the Hollywood Forever cemetery where I encountered numerous peacocks on their morning strolls - see photo), up into Los Feliz and Silver Lake, then back through Hollywood to home. The night before the 18 my achilles tendons were feeling mushy and my bum was quite sore from the two yoga classes I'd taken the day before so I was a bit concerned, but it turned out just fine. My body seemed to have gotten itself together by morning and I had no problems during the run. The one main thing I was thinking about during the run was how maybe long distance running is so off-putting to people because of the sustained inner stillness it demands, much like yoga.This past week I have been doing some grassroots marketing for the new yoga studio I'm teaching at called In Yoga Center. This basically means that I stand in front of Trader Joe's and say "can I interest you in a free class at a new yoga studio?" and then the person generally lets me know their feelings about yoga as they tell me whether they are interested or not. A LOT of people apparently don't like yoga because they say they don't have the patience for it. They get anxious during the long holds of certain poses. They'd rather do something that keeps their mind more occupied instead of having to deal with stilling the mind. Of course I understand their frustration. I too have experienced the impatience and agitation they refer to. I suppose the difference is that I've come to know how the practice of staying with the agitated mind during yoga asana actually deepens and expands one's capacity for inner peace and harmony in all kinds of situations. I no longer resent the long holds, instead I crave them.
In Chip Hartranft's translation of the Yoga Sutras, sutra 1.2 is "Yoga is to still the patterning of consciousness" and sutra 1.13 is "Practice is the sustained effort to rest in that stillness". According to the Sutras, through the regular practice of 'resting in stillness' we can burn through the 'chitta vrittis', which is the mind-stuff that we are constantly at the mercy of. By being with the agitated mind, by bearing witness to it instead of simply indulging in its impulse to zig-zag all over the place, we can begin to shift our state of being from identification with the mental noise to identifying with the presence beneath. Why do this at all? In my experience, because it allows you to be at peace with yourself. It calms the nervous system. It let's you enjoy (or at least accept) many situations that you might previously have railed against. It de-victimizes you.
The experience of being in hour three of a seemingly endless run is quite similar. Even though the scenery is gradually shifting as you move from one neighborhood to the next, there is little for the mind to "do", so not only is it a test of physical endurance and strength, it is also a challenge for the mind just learn how be there, along for the ride. And I do think it is cultivating another level of inner peace for me. Long distance running as a practice surely feels like a 'sustained effort to rest in that stillness'.
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