Naked..It's the New Black

So there has been this naked running trend going down on Dailymile. No. I'm not talking about exposing booty butt cheeks. I'm talking about running sans music and Garmin. Well, going without music may not be a big deal. I did a 10 mile race without it. But the whole no Garmin thing, well that's HUGE. Once you get into the world of running, you become obsessed with numbers. How fast did I go? How far did I go? What's my best pace? What are my splits? All this goes on and you start to forget why you started running in the first place. And it stops being fun. Yes, it's nice knowing that I can run fast if I want to. But do I really enjoy it? Not that much.

I hit the road yesterday without a damn thing. In all honesty, I've been running without the supposed necessities for a bit now. I don't do socks, unless it's cold. I got rid of the stability shoes 3 months ago (viva la minimalist running!). I've been without music for 2 months (because I'm waiting for an ear bud replacement from Hong Kong..Long story. And now I can't tell you where my mp3 player is.). So yeah, I was almost there. But I never ran without my Garmin until yesterday. I wasn't tempted to take my Timex Ironman watch. I didn't set the stopwatch on my phone. Heck, I didn't even look at the time when I started/stopped. And you know what? It was a wonderful feeling. And the best run I had in ages. I wasn't even a minute into it when I started smiling. Who does that? Apparently, I do. I haven't run with a smile probably since the very beginning. Running went from something I enjoyed to me saying, "Okay, let's just get this over with." What are the chances of having a good run when you think of it that way? It shouldn't be that way.

So I enjoyed naked running so much that I may do it for the rest of the week. If all goes well, I'll be knocking out a 6 miler by the weekend. I won't stress about it. I won't try to hold a certain pace or beat a certain time. I'll just do it because I like to do it. And I'll remember how overjoyed I was when I started. Because running was something I was never capable of (damn anemia!). I dreamed about it, but couldn't do it. And when I finally did it, my thought was, "Thank you, God." I need to get back to that. And yesterday was one of those moments. I had no distractions. It was me, the sun, the blue skies, and the Canadian geese (one hissed at me).

Speaking of dreams, a couple weeks ago I dreamed of running a half. I know I mentioned the possibility of running one. But you don't understand. When I dream something, I must make it happen. Or I'll keep dreaming about it until it happens. That's how I got into running in the first place. If I dream it, it shall be or I shall be nagged to death in my dreams. So if all goes well with my running, all the sudden, you'll check my blog to find a race report out of no where. Yeah, that would be funny considering how much I hate racing. Hmm, maybe I'll race naked. That's a thought. But first, let's hope my mojo continues and that nothing breaks down on me.

Happy running or whatever it is you do. Be free! Run naked!