Running for your Mind

Tonight I went running.
It has been a long time since I've gone running. ( More like a slow jog :)) More than a year. but it has been even longer than that since I've done my old route that I used to run in my pre-married days when I lived here with my parents. Every way you go from our house there is a hill of substantial size, so when you're out of shape it's quite a daunting prospect to consider. But just down a tiny bit of hill is the large canal that runs parallel to the main road, in a meandering sort of way. This is the way I used to run, down along the canal for about 1/2 mile or so, then up a steep hill and backtrack a bit to follow a branch of the canal through some farmer's fields for another 1/2 mile or more out onto a main road and then back about a mile or more. It is such a beautiful jog, along a lush canal lined with trees and shrubs and ducks and sometimes snakes. The sun was just about to go down, so the sky was beautiful, the air had cooled a bit from the 100F it had been earlier. It was so refreshing to be out alone, to let my mind free. I wanted to keep running forever.