Sunday, 8/26/07 (60 minutes)
Pleasant N. field laps with Kiesz and Ian.
Saturday, 8/25/07 (70 minutes)
Darkness disquiets more fully when incomplete. In pitch black, you're too blind to be scared. In the semi-glow of a moonless night or the murk of a basement cellar, shapes, deprived by darkness of definite form, distort themselves freely, drown out of proportion by disturbed imagination. A coat rack becomes a man, tall and thin, standing to the side in spooky silence. Only on the closest inspect do supernaturally-long fingers resolve into a tree branch, or a deep, empty pit into a darker patch of clover. Shadows, cast out like silver nets from their sources, slinking back and forth, crossing over each other in a ceaselessly-stirring mosaic, assume every possible sinister shape and stature. When the lights are dim, every coil of rope becomes a snake.
Something similar happens when I run by myself. The feedback I get from my body is poor. Most of the time, most parts of our bodies are in "total darkness" - we aren't even consciously aware of, say the area just below the skin above the knuckle of the second toe of our right foot. A sharp pain in your side when you get a cramp or the burning on the roof of your mouth when the pizza is too hot are then "spotlights", temporarily brilliantly illuminating a small bit of yourself for the sake of instant action.
Without belaboring the analogy, what then are the vague twinges and intimations of sensation that I feel when running? On the horizon, silhouetted at sundown, Pancho Villa can see there is SOMETHING standing there, but is it a solitary cactus or scout of the federal army? Running my laps on the North Field, I can catch hints there there is SOMETHING happening in my right achilles, the area above my left knee, the ball of my hips, but they are too distant and too faint to tell what they mean. So I go on for a while, watching carefully, cutting the run 20 minutes short, stopping to stretch, and constantly wondering what fate has in store for me next.
Friday, 8/24/07 (20 minutes)
Kiesz and I decided it would be a profoundly good idea to drive around randomly, stop by the side of the road somewhere, and, crossing our fingers tightly behind our backs and spinning around in circles with our eyes shut tight, hope that we would miraculously stumble upon an interesting trail to follow. After about eight attempts of this game and some serious damage to our respective genitalia, we returned to Tech for burritos and live coverage of the high jump of the heptathlon.
Thursday, 8/23/07 (3 x arroyo tempo)
3 arroyo tempo loop laps of 8:40, 8:34, 8:42 = 25:56
The start was not propitious. I overslept, and didn't have time for the six laps I was planning. Consequently, before the run I was annoyed at everything. I was annoyed at the sun for setting too early, at the stoplights on California for delaying my progress, at the clothes I forgot to dry for being wet, at horses, dogs, and old people on the trail for existing, at the dirt for slipping under my feet, at my knees for clicking with every stride, and pretty much at anything I could moderately anthropomorphize, for in some form getting in the way of my run.
But, magically, the times reading off my watch were fast, and so when I finished the run, I didn't care any more. I didn't care that I was assaulted by some sort of crazed Zamboni driver inexplicably patrolling the Arroyo Seco trail, kicking up a rather-belligerent dust storm in the process. I didn't care that I had a long uphill bike to get out of the arroyo, or that archers were shooting at their targets across the trail I was using. Simply because I was pleased with the numerical result of my run, my entire attitude changed.
This is a bit disturbing to me. What I'm like shouldn't be so closely linked to the small details of just what's happening right at the moment. I'd like to think I can go with the flow a bit. At times when the majority of the physical world seems to grate against my psyche, I ought to be able to step back for a second, chill out, and realize how pointless such an attitude is. It shouldn't take a random lucky occurence to bring me back to the state of a human being fit for interaction in a gregarious society. Apparently, though, what I can't do for myself, a good run can do for me.
Wednesday, 8/22/07 (60 minutes)
There were softball players on my field. Also, the South field was closed. Normally that isn't a deterrent, but I was feeling a little ornery so I used the North field anyway and just dodged around people whenever there was a fly ball to the outfield.
Tuesday, 8/21/07 (no run)
I seriously doubt I ran this day. It was a long time ago, though, and I don't remember exactly. I think there was something about sleeping in the library, eating the last few packages of Mentos from O'Doms, and possibly drinking from sprinklers, but I'm not sure. When did I win Olive Walk Darts? Not sure. I think it was last week though.
Monday, 8/20/07 (60 minutes)
After three weeks of building, I'll try be intelligent and take a down week here, and maybe go to the gym. I haven't been much because it always seems to be closed or closing. Also, it's too fucking hot. One or two days is fine, but weeks of it is just inexcusable. Oh capricious god of daily temperature highs, please stop being such a little bitch. Maybe you don't know how bad the heat has been around here, but I was babysitting the other day, and I left the thing outside for just one hour, and wound up looking like this:
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