Field Notes 20260424 - Friday
Talaria for a working Friday
Afternoon
- Sun: Taurus 5°
- Moon: Leo 11° | First Quarter
Meditation
- 30 Minutes.
- Expand app, timer section, F18.
It’s a “working Friday,” which means one less day this week of a longer and more substantial session that I typically like to run on my days off. Not a problem at all, the Field Notes during these weeks just tend to be on the thinner side when it comes to substance.
The morning run was solid. I didn’t push it, ran at my typical average pace for the usual Friday 10k. I’ve set up my weekly morning runs with these distances over Fall, Winter, and Spring: Monday 8 miles, Wednesday 8 miles, Friday 6-ish miles (10k). The idea behind this was to use Friday as my full throttle, balls to the wall, pedal to the metal, empty all the tanks run to improve my time.
That plan worked for a while, but I’m now noticing that it’s become more of a, “It’s Friday, I’m physically beat up, nice and easy 10k it is!” In the past I used Friday runs as my longest of the week, stretching around 11 to 15 miles. I did this for a whole year and it worked out great, but I got tired of being tired for half my weekend.
New plan:
- Monday: 7 miles - Fresh legs, full energy, racing my own pace.
- Wednesday: 9 miles - Energetic run with moderate intensity, aerobic steady-state middle.
- Friday: 10 miles - Nice and easy long-distance run, easy effort, building base.
- Non-working Friday: 11+ miles - Nice and easy long-distance run, easy effort, building base.
Why am I writing about running in Field Notes which are primarily about meditation and altered state exploration? Because physical fitness is a huge part of my practice, without it everything else doesn’t work as well. That’s just how this physical instrument operates. Instead of fighting nature I learned to work with it. Give the body, mind, and ego what it requires and it allows me to go and explore the non-physical and the non-local in the most optimal way for me.
Having said all of that, and since today is a working Friday for me, only a 30 minute session was possible. During this session everything operated just fine, but I was a bit physically tired. Had I had time for a longer session this would work in my favor to go very deep and attempt more immersive altered states. That wasn’t in the cards today, so I spent most of my time lightly spacing out and just focusing on being present in F18 (heart energy).
Overall: good morning run, relaxed meditation, time to engage in creative work and fix some stuff in the yards this weekend.