Running vs Lifting

The title of this post may indicate that I am going to compare running and lifting in terms of exercise, possibly the pros and cons of each or some such thing. I am not. I will not. I simply can't. 

The two are very different types of exercise and they serve very different purposes, but what they have in common is that I am in love with both of them. However, I find that I need each of them in very different ways and have very different mental approaches to them.


First, running.

Running is something I began doing in college to escape from my dorm room. Freshman year in a dorm room the size of my bedroom at home, only with me and two other girls made for some tight living space. My head crammed in my books for the majority of the time made for a mentally confined space. I didn't have a car. I didn't know a lot of people. So I ran. I ran around the nice neighborhoods in Chestnut Hill and Newton, Mass. It was pretty. It was hilly. It was challenging. But most importantly it was freeing. It was the only time I stopped worrying about my upcoming test and about if my roommate would be up all night listening to loud music again. When I was running, I was right where I was supposed to be.

Fast forward to graduate school 4 years later. I lived in a more spacious apartment, but my office had no windows and I shared it with the other first years in my program. 12 hours days of physics were overwhelmeing, and the woods around Duke were gorgeous. So I ran. I escaped again.

This is what running has always been for me. It's a release. A momentary relief from a day typically wrought with worry. I am a worrier by nature, except when I'm running. I need the let-go. Unfortunately there are very few places where I truly feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be and doing what I'm supposed to be doing. Running never fails to give me that sense of peace. I need it the same way that some people need to go home and watch a TV show, or read a good book...to get their mind out of this world and into another less crazy one.

I tend not to think about anything when I run. I feel like I've done it for so long and practiced so much that my body just knows the movement. The rhythm calms me down and then I zone out. Once I start to feel tired I then check how far or how long I've gone. I try not to keep pace or to "hit goals" with it because it takes the relaxation out of it for me. If I want to train for a 5k, I need to do this -- to have specific times and workouts, but on a day-to-day basis, I don't.

Now lifting.

I don't need to lift like I need to run. Lifting gives me something very different than running does. I sharpen my concentration and focus in the weight room. You see, unlike running, lifting isn't natural to me. My body doesn't simply know how to move: it hasn't been deadlifting ever since I was 5 years old like it has running. So I focus. I focus on my form. I focus on not dropping the weights on my feet. I focus on lifting harder, on completing a set, and sometimes I focus on focus itself. (Ok...maybe I went too far). The point is, it takes a lot of concentration. It isn't relaxing like running.

But yet I love it. I need it in a different way. The exhaustion my body feels afterwards is something I've never really achieved the same way with running. Of course I've felt tired after logging more miles, but the sort of exhaustion when you know you cannot pick even the lightest weight up because all your muscles may just stop working, is a bit different.

I need it because the focus and the discipline are also enjoyable, and they make me appreciate my relaxed running state every more. I like practicing determination. I like that being a bit stubborn is encouraged in the weight room...that I can dare myself to lift more every time I go in there.

Mostly I like that I can dare myself to be better at both. I was never one for competition against other teams or other people. I've always liked beating my own records more than someone else's. Both running and lifting let me do that every day. Every day I get to step on the trail, on the track, under the full rack and challenge myself. I use one to relax and get in shape and the other to practice focus and get in shape. They compliment each other for me. The mental break I get from running helps me focus better when I'm lifting. It's really the perfect combination. :-)

Do you have a certain exercise that helps you escape? That requires a lot of focus? Do you prefer one or the other? Or do you find they work well together?