What I talk about when I talk about coughing

Had a bummer of an allergy / asthma evening, giving up the whole sleep thing at 3 AM and started casting about for something cheerier to read than Antonia Juhasz's Tyranny of Oil (which I'm 3 or 4 chapters into on Juju's prompting - see links there.). Wound up choosing something I knew wouldn't be cheery at all, but would engage me - and downloaded Haruki Murakami's What I Talk Abut When I Talk About Running. (Here's a NYT review - I haven't read any reviews yet and don't intend to. Shush.)

So, I'm reading a section where Murakami's talking about what he thinks about when he's running, and it's very, very familiar to me. It's my good mode when I'm not actively involved in something useful (and maybe half the times when I am). My other mode is brooding (also known as thinking), and that usually sucks. To whit:

I'm often asked what I think about when I run. Usually the people who ask this have never run long distances themselves. I always ponder the question. What exactly do I think about when I', running? I don't have a clue.

On cold days I guess I think a little about how cold it is. And about the heat on hot days. When I'm sad I think a little about sadness. When I'm happy I think a little about happiness. As I mentioned before, random memories come to me too. And occasionally, hardly ever, really, I get an idea to use in a novel. But really, as I run, I don't think much of anything worth mentioning.

I just run. I run in a void. Or maybe I should put it the other way: I run in order to acquire a void...