Sleep comes easy when I have been for a run

Healthy cities enable safe and inclusive walking, wheeling and cycling.

Being outside - the brain loves it! (check the link)

Those healthy cities also enable a safe and inclusive run or jog. 

Design guidance for a healthy city in which to run?   Well it should host a Park Run - Park Run is the BEST invention!  Plus it should make a serious effort to make it safe and welcoming for everyone: it is so good to see this initiative.

There's more guidance for the healthy running city hidden in the myriad of reasons why people run/jog.  For myself I NEED to run for three reasons:

Sleep comes easy when I have been for a run.

A run that I can easily remember. What does that mean? Well, a run in the last five to seven days, ideally through an area with micro landmarks (people, edges, movement), so probably best in a city or suburb.  Long or short – it really doesn't matter. I'll use them when I try to sleep....

In bed, wrestling thoughts, tossing, turning, I force myself to remember the detail of that run.  Those micro things. I am in my head looking out from my eyes, like the filming from Peep Show, and I leave the house.  I start to run.  Stiffly. I look left and see the middle-aged man and child, this is framed in my peripheral vision by the steps down from the flat and the plants.  He is wearing a hat – more a cap – what colour is it? The child is skipping. I run down the steps and turn right.  Breathing.  Where did I cross the road? It’s a deep curb with only one car coming from the right and I run diagonally to stop on the central reservation.  The young lad in the car smiles at me as I pass.  That’s nice. What type of car is it? Breathe in and head left to the church. No! Stop! You're going too fast in your head and your memory.  Slow down.  Go back. Where do you re-join the pavement? That’s right, near the bench where there’s a forlorn can of Tennent’s lager.  Semi-crushed.  Carry on.  To the church……and I’m gone. Sleep takes over.

Ideas come when I run.

The thoughts that conflict. The ideas that don't join up. The types of thinking that only tighten the knot and make it worse. Breathe out on the fourth foot.  Steady in, 2, 3 out.  Steady in, 2, 3 out. Steady in, 2, 3 out.  It doesn't change. Steady in, 2, 3 out.   In my peripheral vision the trees.  Straight ahead a wonky paving slab. My brain changes my stride in the miniscule to avoid it.  It just happens. I'm semi-conscious of it. Mind engaged and connected inside to my lungs and outside to the scene. Breathing.  Mind and body just working.  My mind wanders to the outskirts of my day. A new angle. It cuts the cake a different way. Look at it.  It’s different. It’s layered.  It makes sense – it’s simple and beautiful. I get it. It makes sense now and the knot drops open.

I'm a better dad, husband, friend to others and myself when I run.