Today, like most days in the past few weeks, I woke up depressed. I’ve been tired, achy, sad, angry for so long. Over the past few days when I’ve thought about running, I couldn’t imagine doing it again – I’ve felt too heavy and drained. However, when I took the dogs out earlier in the day and felt how cool it was outside (for the first time since summer, pretty much), I decided to try. I made myself a semi-moody, semi-feel-good playlist called “lose yourself running” and went to the park.
On the way there, I listened to “Let Go” by Frou Frou and just sobbed. It’s my favorite “I need to purge my tears but can’t quite start crying on my own” song.
When I first got there, I listened to a couple of random songs while walking to warm up.
When I started running, I listened to “Kiss with a Fist” by Florence + the Machine and ran HARD and FAST until I couldn’t go anymore. It made me feel so ALIVE.
I kept listening to random songs on the list as I ran/walked down the trail. At around the turnaround point, I listened to one of my favorite songs, “Prime Minister’s Love Theme” from the Love Actually soundtrack, and it helped push me along. It’s such a powerful piece of music…I kinda want to walk down the aisle to it on my wedding day, if I ever have one. 
I kept running and taking a couple of walk breaks, and the last song I listened to (twice) was a new one by Sara Bareilles - “Gonna Get Over You,” to which I half-danced, half-ran. Seriously a fun song!
At the end of my run, I could breathe, I didn’t feel half-dead, and I almost felt OK.
Now, can I keep this up? I’m so bad at making the right choices in the moment. “Yeah, the cookie will taste amazing, but that’s X number of calories you don’t need;” “you’ll feel better physically and mentally if you can drag yourself out of your room and go running/biking/to the gym.” Instant gratification has started ruling my life again, and it definitely shouldn’t.
Got favorite running music to share? Favorite moody music? Ways to overcome the need for instant gratification?