Hello!

Here I am prior to the race. Chilly, nervous and excited. I lost my helmet earlier in the year and hadn't replaced it. The regulations require one so I used my climbing helmet. That is what I call "cross-training" (bad climbing cyclist joke).

"If anyone goes out at a suicidal pace, I'll probably sit back" said Alberto Salazar. 

Which one of you fine Steemsters think running is idiotic and boring? Me too.

I hate running. It is painful, requires stretching, monitoring the body, maintaining a form in which the phrase "holding a potato chip" describes your hands and makes my face really really red.  As a kid who was bullied in high school for being a short, thick scholar bowl tomboy, I am not a fan of observable athletic movements.  I enjoy climbing sans crowds, hiking in remote forests and dancing in my living room. I'll practice yoga anywhere but that particular activity provides a calm, centered, give no fucks mindset.  However, the same horrendous feeling that makes the little guy on my shoulder say "stay home" "walk" "you look ridiculous" "this is uncomfortable, let us stop" has a staff wielding protagonist whispering "just keep moving."

Not being a fan of fashion or coordinating outfits, I wear any athletic gear I find in the local Goodwill. As a gag, my parents bought me this very warm but obnoxiously pink shirt.  It kept me warm during my Women's Together 5-k.

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This was the first race I had ever planned and trained for.  

As you can see, my face reddens which would normally be reason enough to delete this photograph from existence but I practiced some yoga before I logged on, so #nofucksgiven

For all of my shyness, I really do enjoy running races. Even when I don't place, don't run quickly and am passed by many a seventy year old man with efficient strides.  Sometimes, when I run, it is fast. Or at least to me it is. Throughout my life as an ice cream addict, my paces have varied from six to eleven minute miles. I train in haphazard cycles intertwined with other obsessions taking the place of running. 

This is a photograph of me in the red shorts and the tie-dye peace sign shirt prior to the Herrinfest 10k. I like looking bright and strange. The absurdity is as amusing as people running quickly in a predetermined route for no reason other than silly human drive.

It was a great race and I felt fast. That boy in the blue pants and I paced back and forth. I gestured to let him go but he didn't have the energy. I love that solidarity and community amongst folks that have never met and may never officially.

Yes, I truly loathe running. But still, I run. After a recent run around town, I took time to reflect. Here is what I wrote:

Loop,  loop, knot, that comforting motion starts the internal clock. Time to  run, my Pavlov body thinks. A few sun salutations warm up my body.   Headphones on, "So you're wishing that you never did/All those  embarrassing things you've done/And you're wishing you could set it  right...", tell Finnegan and Maggot I'll be back, hit the welcoming  porch light and the pavement greets me.  

Left or right?, my calves only comprehend forward.  I head towards  College St. The house with the The Who poster is playing a recording  from Monterey Pop Festival. It mixes well with the Spoon beat that  resounds in my ears.  My mind starts playing a game where it dismembers  concepts.  Firehouses used to have dogs that ran between the carts that  carried the water to burning buildings.  The dogs barked and helped to  clear the road.  Is that why dogs pee on fire hydrants?  Hydrant, comes  from hydro, right?  Glenn Close plays a great villain, its that look.  Damages is really well done.

 I'm passing the old Glove Factory now and the sidewalk  makes me think of cracked desert sandstone.  I see my breath and imagine  everyone I know asleep, breathing in and out, snoring and murmuring,  their lips pursing as their legs stretch unconsciously.  I pass Kieth's  apartment and envision sleeping in a room filled with sketches of  beautiful naked women and skeletal birds; he has marvelous dreams I  suspect.  

South or West?, my feet pull me towards that appointed clock.   Oh campus, full of life even when vacant, I'm just naive, Evian  backwards.  I'm gonna need water when I get home.  I round the ceramics  area of Pulliam and race towards the tunnel in Wham.  I feel fast going  through it.  

Now which way?  At 2 a.m., this normally bustling campus is  my playground.  I decide to tag the cement sculpture of larvae and then head towards Grand  Ave.  I feel my heart contracting and expanding, its the rhythm of my  body at its finest.  

Going, going, going.  I think of my last  hallucination, lying there I reiterated "the light is right".  As I near  Lewis, I'm long into deducing whether humans should hibernate.  The  food chain really does depend on light, the sun.  Plants are the source  for the herbivores, which are the source for the carnivores and  scavengers.  I might not mind sleeping through winter, but then again, I  did run through the snow last week and it almost made me cry out of  happiness. 

Park Street or Wal-Mart?  Although my  reflective get-up makes me shine, its been raining and I'm not feeling  lucky enough for Warren Road/Pleasant Hill, a favourite route, tonight.   My pace has settled around eight minute miles but I pick it up as  "Smiling Black Faces" comes on, I bet the bpm are around 170.  Maybe its  just his voice.  

I'm at Kroger and thinking about how strange the name  is.  K-r-o-g-e-r, is that German?  The "g" throws me.  I think I'll  cross Highway 13 so I can check the Lowes parking lot.  I saw a nifty RV parked  there and drifted into thoughts of a more hi-tech dirtbag.  I dart  across 13 because I can't slow down now.  I'm in it.  

Wal-mart is  marketing genius.  I bet those cool Colorado-type kids fall for the  green signs.  I have a budget, who cares about the hue of the edifice.   Although there is something pleasant about the chocolate swirl floors of  the Murphysboro Wal-mart.  I pass Barnes and Noble and wonder if there  was ever a local bookstore owned by John Barnes and Sarah Noble, two  elderly bibliophiles that had a soft spot for James Joyce. Doubt it.    

No adventurous looking RVs parked outside Lowes, but Lonestar smells  like honeybutter rolls.  Mmmm.  I'm heading home.  I want to pass by  Woodlawn cemetery, so I stay on the westbound 13 side.

 I love the orbs  that the night lampposts create.  I make a game of racing through them  and slowing until I'm in the next one.  I must look silly to bypassers,  but those are scarce and I'm in no mood to impress.  

I'm dance-running  now as Alan Price's voice cheers me on with "Boom boom boom boom, Gonna  shoot ya right now, Take you in my arms, I'm in love with you".  As I  pass the graveyard, I send a silent message towards Molly.  I hope she's  proud of me.  I slow enough to check traffic as I near the other 13.   All clear, I sprint in this last stretch. 

As I open mouth breathe in  this final stretch, I wonder how long a furlong is.  Home!! Whew, slow  down, walk. Time to stretch, get a deserved shower and some shuteye. 

Likely because the day of the mid-April race, it rained and was in the mid-forties, but I got first place in the Doc Spackman Triathlon in my age group. More importantly, when I dove into the water in my swimsuit (instead of the bodysuit the other swimmers wore) I did NOT get hypothermia, shock, leg cramps or begin hyperventilating since the water was mighty cold. 

Steemit Community! What Do You Do For Fun?

As this fantastic social experiment may be on the way to becoming a  community or another Reddit, I'd like to get to know more about the  members. What hobbies do you have? What are your interests? Are  we fully harnessing Steemit and how using our various backgrounds can we  improve it? 

Drop me a line. Let us shape this site, its content and its projectory.

Truly,

H