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How a Middle-Aged Man Learned to Daydream Again

Award-winning CNN correspondent Tom Foreman went from couch potato to ultra-marathoner starting in his 50s. Here's what he discovered about himself and family along the way.

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As a journalist working for an international news organization, I spend my days chasing the world: political events, upheavals, natural disasters, wars, conflicts, and crimes. For almost 40 years now, my working life has been about deadlines, pressure, and rigorous attention to detail, all under the relentless scrutiny of millions of viewers and readers. In the worst times, I dream of work and awaken in the night to check the news for developments.

For a long time, as my children grew up, I sought relief from the maelstrom in painting, playing music, and reading. But these are all essentially mental occupations. I remember what a sculptor once told me: “People need to do physical things. Life can’t be all be about just what is in your head.” So a few years back, at the age of 51, and at the urging of my elder daughter, I returned to a youthful passion: running.


Related: A Guided Meditation for After Exercise


It happened simply. Ronnie asked me to help her train for her first marathon. She is an aerospace engineer (at the time, a freshman at Georgia Tech; now a graduate student at MIT) and she wants to be an astronaut—no kidding. I fielded her request with apprehension. Too many years of business travel, poor dietary choices, and skimpy exercise regimes had left me as rickety as an old step ladder. I was in perilously poor shape to attempt such a feat. But if a daughter asks a dad to even haul down the moon, it is hard to say no. So we began training. We trained more. And more. We ran the race, and then we ran a lot more. And along the way, we discovered not merely better health and fitness, but also a new language of love, compassion, and interest that has pervaded our entire running family; a language born of shared challenges, setbacks, triumphs and the quiet joy that comes from honest effort expended in the great outdoors.

Tom-Foreman-daughter

Foreman with daughter Ronnie at the 2014 Publix Georgia Half Marathon last March in Atlanta.

Both Ronnie and my younger daughter, Ali (also in college), have found that running helps them concentrate, relax, and use time more effectively. My wife, Linda, has added the steady aerobic beat of running to her workout routine to improve her stamina and ease her worries about the girls when they are far away. And me? I find every time I am on the trail, I can run away from all those daily concerns that used to trouble me; for a short while clearing my head, and cleansing my spirit. Perhaps that sounds like too much, but it is how the experience feels particularly when I have time to branch off of the asphalt and onto the dirt paths that cut through the woods. With nothing but the wind around me, trees hovering above, and my feet skittering over the rocks and roots I love to spend hours grinding up and sailing down the hills. Running is, for me, a perfect “re-centering” type of meditation.

If I want to use that time away from phones, computers, headlines, and colleagues to think about matters at work, I can do so. I can mull over complex issues, develop ideas, or reconsider plans with an open mind charged by deep breathing and an accelerated heart rate. But just as easily, I can release all those thoughts and focus on the nature around me, or ideas I have about other things. I have worked out designs for paintings while running, and dreamed up entire novels. I have reconsidered passages I play on guitar and piano, and I have contemplated inventions. And sometimes I just think about running. It all works precisely because the goal of all that thought is not to create a finished product, but rather to free my mind from all the stress of my actual life. It is focused, purposeful, freewheeling and delicious daydreaming—the kind that is hard to come by in our super-connected world.

tomforeman


Related: Is Running Really a Form of Meditation?


A few other things I’ve learned along the way: The effects of age are real, but with minor adjustments to diet and rest, they don’t have to be daunting. I suspect I am now in the best shape of my life. I’ve learned that time outdoors every day really matters to my sense of well-being. The sculptor I spoke with so long ago was right; it’s important to do physical things amid all the mental challenges of a day.

And as I run away from everything that wears upon me, breathing in and out, striding over the earth, I find I am really running back to myself—better, more refreshed, more relaxed, happier and ready to apply myself anew to the rest of my life.

Learn more about Foreman’s book, My Year of Running Dangerously: A Dad, A Daughter, and A Ridiculous Plan, which hit bookstores this October.

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