Called to prayer - why?

I am a complete idiot. You might not think it to look at me, but I am. I let myself get terribly sunburnt last week, and now the daily pain in my arms and legs reminds me that I am an idiot. I have decided that pointless, unintentional, self-inflicted pain does not bring a person closer to God. It just hurts. Still, it is probably good in itself for me to be reminded that I am an idiot.

One unforseen consequence of all this (I mean, all of it was unforseen, but this is more unforseen than the rest) is that I can't jog in the mornings at the moment. Every step jolts my swollen and burning skin terribly so that I can hardly walk. I deserve every moment of it, and no sympathy at all, I realize that, but what about the effect on my prayer life?

My prayer rule has been jogging around the oval and singing/praying/reciting as I go. The running keeps my thoughts in rhythm and focused in a way that just sitting on the edge of the bed fails to do. I was nearly frantic thinking that I was going to lose my impetus to pray because of a stupid accident!

I should not have worried. I should have realized that when God closes off the oval, he opens a glove box. I found my prayer beads again, which I used to use in the car but at some point left in the glove box and forgot about. Now, the large beads are the Lord's Prayer, the small beads are songs or prayers or people to pray for. This works even better than jogging, and is a lot more portable. I feel like I am rediscovering ancient rituals.

The strange side effect is that I find myself praying almost obsessively. I have turned off the radio and abandoned my talking books completely. The drive to work seems too short to pray for everyone, and I only get about halfway through my prayer rule and am tempted to sit in the car rather than go inside. Prayer is taking up sometimes hours a day, if all the little odd moments of prayer got put together.

These are not exactly deep or profound prayers either. I am not asking God for things, usually, or thanking Him either. I am not quite sure what the "point" of all this prayer activity is, but it almost getting to the stage of a compulsion. I could refuse, so I know I am not developing OCD, but I still don't know why I do it. What good is prayer anyway?