Deep breaths

    This evening I'm finally able to catch my breath.  After a whirlwind weekend full of little surprises here we are, back to the routine, and I can take a second to reorganize my thoughts.
    Over the weekend my boyfriend of five years (Lucas Welling) visited me.  We are in a transition between our college town and our future home and are having to live in different cities for the first time ever!  The stress of this change along with the normal work, tests for school, etc was a little overwhelming.  My workouts for the beginning of this week have been nothing but below expectations and of course I didn't take the time to consider why this might be before getting very frustrated. 
    The final straw broke when I was on my easy run this afternoon.  I had just gotten out of a test, mildly harassed by a hobo on my way home, and come to the realization I wasn't probably going to have enough time for my entire swim workout before an extra rehearsal I had to get to.  I began my run with my heart already pumping a little, the stress of the afternoon fresh on my chest.  Of course it is never good to start an easy run with a high cadence and enough anxious energy to go for three hours, but that's what I decided to do anyway.  About twenty minutes into my run I started to get a little uncomfortable; my stomach was hurting and my chest was tight.  This was such an unusual feeling especially for an easy casual run, so I started to think about what I was doing.  I was allowing myself to plow through this run just like another check off of my daily list of tasks.  I came to the realization that I was not allowing myself to enjoy this run at all, so I stopped for a second, took a deep breath, flipped my watch over, stopped tracking my pace and began running again with the single focus of "how does this feel".  Sure enough after a short while everything felt great; my stride was locked in, I could breathe easily, there was no more stomachache and I actually felt happy!  It is so easy to get caught up in the daily grind that even the most enjoyable part of your day can be ruined.  I thought about the weekend and wished I had taken this deep breath sooner.  Not only would my workouts have been more productive, but I would have spent more enjoyable time with Lucas rather than talking about how stressful everything was.  The entire reason I began running and doing triathlons was to relieve stress and enjoy challenging my body, and when I allowed myself to focus on just that purpose everything fell right back into place.  I am a true yogi at heart and it is always important to remember to take cognizant deep breaths and enjoy every second of each exhalation.