Breathing during a run: find your center and run from within

It was a glorious morning for a run today. Slightly cloudy with the temperature in the high fifties and just a slight breeze, the day beckoned for me to just run, freely and without any distractions. So I did.

In keeping with my recent epiphany, I once again eschewed any music in the run. Starting off from my house, I followed my usual route down some side streets to the local park, which has a lovely path past some athletic fields, a canal, and tennis courts. It was early, so there were only a few fellow runners and walkers on the path. But there was a large crowd forming on one field for the day's youth soccer games. As my run progressed, this proved to be a fun sidelight, as I enjoyed hearing the shouts of encouragement from parents to their children as the games began.

As to my run, I purposefully approached it with a gameplan of sorts (something I always do): I would run the first mile or so as a warm-up, then pick up my pace a little and run consistently for the next several miles, at which point I would just let loose and run wide open (this does not mean sprinting) until I tired or I needed to return home.

Delight in the simplicity of running

Were I to have the least bit of knowledge, in walking on a Great Road,
it's only going astray that I would fear.
The Great Way is very level;
But people greatly delight in tortuous paths.
--Lao-Tzu, Tào Té Chīng, Chapter 53, 6th century BCE

Lao-Tzu (also Laozi) was a Chinese philosopher who authored the now-famous Tao Te Ching, a collection of versus intended to impart wisdom to the reader. It is the principle foundation of Taoism, which--as both a religion and a philosophy--stresses living in harmony with the Tao. In Chinese philosophy, or more correctly spiritualism, the Tao (which loosely translates as "the way") is the principle driving force of the universe. It is at once both obscure and mundane, for while it defies being encapsulated in a simple definition, is in fact unknowable, it can be observed in the daily course of life. Thus, it establishes--to the observant, the one "in tune" with themselves and the world around them--principles for how to live.

Many of these principles are about morality, about understanding how to act towards others, towards nature itself; they reflect learning to not just live, but to live well. However, the path to understanding--or to enlightenment, if you will--includes an understanding of the purely physical, as well, insofar as there must be harmony within the individual who seeks such understanding. The question is, can one achieve such harmony in a given activity? If so, how?