5.3 miles
bottom franklin hill and back
33 degrees
Sun! Above freezing! Clear walking paths! Shadows! A nice, relaxed run.
a new experiment
I tried something new today. I picked 5 Emily Dickinson poems that I have memorized, then stopped after each mile to recite one of them into my phone. Mile 1, “Before I got my eye put out”; Mile 2, “We Grow Accustomed to the Dark”; Mile 3, “A Murmur in the Trees”; Mile 4, “A Felt a Funeral in my Brain”; and Mile 5, “A Heard a Fly Buzz when I died.” I didn’t have to stop right at the end of the mile, but just sometime before the next mile. It was fun and made the run go by faster. Sometimes I thought about what I had just recited as I ran, sometimes I didn’t. After “Murmur” I thought about ways to mash its lines up with “We Grow Accustomed” — maybe I’ll work on that more today?
assessment: This experiment was fun and helpfully distracting. I’ll definitely try it again!
10 Things
- Hi Dave!
- not much snow left on the walking path or the grass — in some places, a lumpy line of snow in the middle of the walking path from where the plow pushed the snow off of the biking trail
- a few slippery spots where water was barely ice
- the river was mostly frozen with a few spots of dark water
- a bird singing, cheeseburger or tea kettle — I guess that’s a chickadee?
- the thump of my zipper pull against by neck or chest
- a fat bike laboring by — slow and steady
- at least one bench was occupied — a person and two dogs
- my shadow beside me — sharp and erect
- another lone black glove — small
For part of the run, I focused on my rhythmic breathing: 1 2 3 in / 1 2 out. I began chanting: mystery is solved, then history is fact?, then history is wrong, then whose history is that? (which doesn’t quite fit the 3/2), whose story is told, and at whose expense?