Running As Therapy

My run today was nothing more than 6 miles of therapy.

You see, my day went from great at noon to o.k. by 1:00 and then to absolutely frustrating and irritating by 4:00. Then, just before I leave for my 6-mile run, I get the following e-mail from one of the senior execs who sat through the same 3:00 meeting. It simply said:

"It is really too bad we can't be candid, isn't it."

Talk about giving me something to think about on the run.

You see, I do research and development for a living. I play all day in the lab. I have cloned things. I have mutated things. I have killed things. I have even made life. Basically, if God ever had a sick day, I could fill in. And in my current position, I get to develop and apply new technologies to improve drug safety. It really is an awesome job.

But every now and then we have problems in that what happens in the development phase doesn't always translate well into the production phase.

And then we have meetings about it.

That happened at 3:00 today.

By 3:45, I was ready to scream.

So for 6 miles today, I thought about everything I should have said in the meeting, but didn't. I talked out loud while I ran. I cursed a little. I made myself laugh several times with funny thoughts. I got struck on the head by a walnut falling from a tree (that made me curse some more, then laugh some more). But by mile 5, I was feeling a lot better about everything.

I even determined the best way to solve our little work problem.

My day is once again great.

Sometimes, I just love running!