How far is Heaven?

The inspiration for many of the entries I make to this space usually comes while I'm out on a run.  It's my time to let my mind wander wherever it wants to go.  Sometimes I think about running, or work, or family, or nothing at all.  And sometimes I just have a song running through my head.

I have a friend who used to talk about the internal jukebox most of us have in our brains.  It can be fascinating if you pay attention to it.  Sometimes a song will come into your head, and you have no idea why it came to you, and it will turn out to be appropriate to the situation you find yourself in.  Sometimes the relevance may not even be immediately apparent, but it's like your internal jukebox has intuition, and  eventually it dawns on you why that song was in your head.

I have talked about running with an ipod before, and mentioned that I often do it these days.  But here is the drawback:  when you are playing songs you choose, even if they are randomly off your 'shuffle' playlist, you miss out on the random jukebox in your head.  You also tend to miss out on the other random thoughts that enter your head, or even just the psuedo-meditation you can sometimes enjoy while running in nature.

But the thought I wanted to share today is kind of funny.  One of the most poignant memories I have of the jukebox in my head while running comes aobut nine years ago when I was suffering through an 18 mile run on a really hot summer day.  I mean really suffering!  Anyway, the song that randomly came into my head was the chorus from a John Mellencamp song.  It went, "This is not be the end of the world... but you can see it from here".  Unfortunately, the memory of that run ruined the song for me after that.

Over the weekend, I ran in Barrington on hills.  If you have ever done those hills, you know that one or two of them seem to rise, crescendo, then rise some more.  I run with a couple of friends out there, and we usually carry on conversations during most of the early miles.  When the hills come, though, the conversation tends to drift off.  Well I was on the last of those hills, when I realized the song in my head was the one by Los Lonely Boys called, "How far is Heaven".  It was hilarious!  I felt like I was reaching for the finish, the end to the suffering.  And when I did reach the top of that last hill it was at least a momentary taste of heaven!

I told my running partners about it, and one of my friends mentioned later in the run that the song going through his head was  "I will fix you" by Coldplay.  He said he didn't think he was feeling that bad! 

Anyway, it was a good day to gut out a long run, and now the weather should, hopefully be warmer, and that should make the long runs a little nicer.  Meantime if you see some guy doing air guitar on the running path in the next few days, I swear it's not me!

Comments

[kevin hacker]

I also have songs pop into my head during my longer runs, but I'm not usually aware of it. One of my co-workers asked me last year what I thought about during my long training runs. I couldn't answer the question. I had no idea what I thought about. Then I tried to pay attention during my next long run so that I could give her an answer. Unfortunately, I couldn't pay attention long enough during the run to answer. I guess my mind just wanders, going off on tangents, but nothing specific that I can usually remember. I think it's sort of a meditative state.