THIS ISN'T HAPPENING, THIS ISN'T HAPPENING, THIS ISN'T HAPPENING, and so goes the latest in long-distance technology, better than sports gels or blood doping or even Newton Running Shoes, and am I ever grateful because dissociation is my speciality. What I lack in proper form and wicking fibers and motivation, I more than make up for in denial and substance abuse. That's my stoli and i'm sticking to it.
It's just that I can no longer stand the common sense advice so easily available, like DRESS IN LAYERS, WEAR REFLECTIVE CLOTHING, JUST SAY NO, because, well, I'm accommodating by nature. To help me improve physically, you have to mess with my mind. If you want me to run faster, you have to recommend three sets of daydreaming, 12 reps each of talking to myself out loud, Mondays, Wednesdays and alternating non-governmental holiday Fridays.
I started writing again, in earnest, in the spare bedroom, even, and suddenly it feels like, well, it feels like, hmm, how would I describe it? Have you ever pulled off the highway at one of those obscure historical markers, not one on the atlas, like Little Bighorn or Craters of the Moon, but something you've never heard of, like Mother Neff State Park or Fort Bradstreet, and while you were walking along the Civilian Conservation Corps-built trail, thought, 'Something isn't quite right'?
The paving stones along the path are sometimes too far apart, sometimes too close, sometimes set too low, sometimes too high. As you are walking, you cannot find any sort of rhythm and even though the walk is free of charge, you return to your car hoping you have kept the receipt, you imagine the fresh, young face of a National Park Service Employee and take no small measure of pleasure in seeing that joy melt into anguish as she reads your STRONGLY WORDED LETTER. Have you ever walked a path and felt that something wasn't quite right?
Imagine that you are not even running, but lying down when the only goal in front of you is not a dozen miles but someone who hangs on your every word, is impressed by your every thought, and cannot help but reward your cleverness at every turn, and laughs and tells you that you are so pretty and seems intimidated and stunned and, and, well, sleepy.
That is the advice I need when running, to tell me not to run, to tell me I'm not running, to tell me I'm 20 years removed from a past I have some hope of altering, and each step is nothing more than quiet footfalls in a dream where flying is optional but largely preferred, in spite of the low fuel economy, in spite of the unpopularity on the west coast, in spite of the secret thrill you experience in destroying the environment that you love, love, love. Tell me that when I'm running, not to think about running, and substitute running for any one of my other vices, and I can imagine myself going the distance and hardly breaking a sweat, much less a leg or a vow.
3 comments:
I find myself in a similar rut when I run and, actually, do anything else...if I don't preoccupy myself with thoughts that have nothing to do with what I'm doing, I'm screwed. Right now, for example, I should be studying algorithmic complexity analysis for an exam in a couple hours, but here I sit writing this....and isn't it wonderful? I trust that during the exam, I'll think about you running and the answers will all be obvious.
At first I thought that said Mother Nerf State Park.
"...each step is nothing more than quiet footfalls in a dream where flying is optional but largely preferred..."
and here i was thinking that was the whole point. i'm looking forward to march (isn't that when you run this way?)
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