10nineteen

Many people like to spend time gardening to reduce stress. I also like to garden and get my hands dirty, but oftentimes the pleasant activity of backyard gardening is mixed with the unpleasant activity of yard work. Actually, most of the yard work is fun (trimming trees and shrubs, weeding the garden beds) but the actual clean up portion is what I dread. And while I am zeroing in on the unpleasant parts, I have to say that the worst plants to deal with are the rose bushes in our front yard.

Our rose bushes grow like crazy during the summer, so they require a lot of maintenance, otherwise things can quickly get out of control. The thorns on those branches are sharp! Of course I wear gloves and long sleeves but they don’t offer that much protection, especially when bagging all the clipped branches, and this is where the stress-reduction comes in.

I don’t curse or use bad words often, but during the bagging of those thorny rose clippings, F-bombs fill the air. Normally I am doing yard work alone so I can really let loose with the cursing without having to worry about offending anybody. I used to just focus on the frustration and pain (physical), but now I’ve found that by focusing on the actual cursing and imagining the release of all that tension, it turns into a positive experience. I kind of imagine that attached to each swear-word is a small amount of stress, and it is being released from my mind and into the air. This is stress that has built up throughout the week, not just because of the rose bushes. You know what? This positive spin seems to work. And it is actually pretty funny – I can’t help but laugh at myself!

I got a new pair of running shoes last week: On “Cloud” running shoes. They are very light and would be classified as a minimalist shoe, but they do have some decent padding. I’ve always run in a standard-type running shoe – shoes with a medium amount of padding, but in the past several years there has been so much variety in the market, with minimalist shoes becoming popular a few years ago, and now super-cushy shoes are getting the spotlight. So for my latest pair of shoes, I wanted to try something besides my standard shoe. A few of my friends really liked their minimalist shoes so I decided to try some, figuring I would ease into the new type of running by alternating between the Cloud shoes and my standard running shoes.

Running in the new shoes the first time was great! First of all, these shoes are so light – they weigh almost nothing! I was expecting a really different feel because these shoes supposedly have less support and cushioning than my regular running shoes, but it was really comfy. The angle of the shoe is different, so I do have to change my running form to a more forward posture, with shorter strides. My normal running style is with pretty short strides, so there wasn’t too drastic a change form me, but the shoes felt really good. I ended up running 2 miles on that first run.

The next day, my feet were a little sore. But it was a good kind of soreness, not like an injury or anything. The following day I was fully recovered and went running again in the Clouds and enjoyed the run even more. My third run was the best so far and I haven’t actually went back to my normal shoes yet. Today I am taking a day off from running, but I am planning on trying to run maybe three days, then one day of rest. We’ll see how that goes. Overall, I am happy with the On Cloud running shoes and would recommend them!