What do people think about when they run?  Especially when they run for several hours?  Seems like you you should be able to solve world hunger, or at least a complicated quadratic equation or two.  But truth is, you often don’t think about much at all.  It has been said that long distance runners mostly think about how hard long distance running is.  That’s true, you certainly do become intimately aware of every ache, pain or possible muscle tweak.  But only some of the time.  Outside of that, the mind wanders, the synapses stumbling about in a drunken stupor, a quasi-dreamlike state that oddly is described as a “runner’s high”.  Yesterday Mike sent around an article about the “mind-clearing magic of running.”   Mindfulness may be chic, but mindlessness has its benefits.  

Runner and writer Haruki Murakami says he sometimes thinks, and sometimes doesn’t during a run, but that’s not important.  “I just run.  I run in void.  Or maybe is should put it the other way: I run in order to acquire a void.”   We played off that concept by needling one of our crew:  “That explains it — he has simply run too much.”  

But this mindlessness is beneficial not just for the peace it brings after a two hour jaunt up the rocky and rutted trails of Mt. Tam.   Scientists have shown that vigorous aerobic activity can do the impossible — trigger the creation of new neurons in the brain, in the hippocampus, the key section of the brain responsible for learning and memory.   Yes, we kills some neurons when we indulge a few glasses of wine, but at least now it is not just a downward spiral of neurons down the toilet as we age; a healthy run can do wonders not just for the heart, lungs and soul. The brain is a winner too.

Of course we didn’t talk about any of this while we were running today.  No.  The usual chatter about aches and pains, the latest on college decisions (several of us have high school seniors going through that stressful process).  But we returned to the flatlands of Mill Valley after a nice 10 mile jaunt through the redwoods, our hippocampi swelling with new neurons!