5 miles
around john stevens house and back
46 degrees
wind: 28 mph gusts
AQI: 12!
The air quality is 12?! That’s why I love fall and winter: much better air to breathe! Very windy, which is mostly a bummer because it means more of the red and yellow and orange leaves will fall sooner. But, it’s partly okay; it’s a chance to recite some of my favorite wind lines: I am the wind and the wind is invisible, all the leaves tremble but I am invisible and Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor You, but when the leaves hang trembling the wind is passing through.
A nice run, even if my left leg — my IT band or something else in my hip/hamstring/glute — hurts. I ran 4 minutes and walked 1 and it felt fine. It wasn’t hard or easy, it just was.
10 Things
- lots of dead leaves on the paved path — hiding twigs and acorns
- the surface of the water, glowing white through the trees
- voices below me, on the winchell trail
- a neighbor’s sidewalk covered in soft, yellowed pine needles
- a parks’ riding lawn mower rumbling behind me — loud and getting closer
- the bridge over to veterans home is still blocked off, to cars and pedestrians
- a line of people on the edge of the parking lot, waiting to pay for parking
- kids voices — loud, ebullient — at the playground
- mostly empty benches, but at least one person sitting on one
- the flash of lime green: the basket of a lime rental bike parked at the bike rack beside the 38th street steps
The wind was mostly at my back on the way south, and in my face on the way north. As I ran north, I tried to notice the milliseconds when both feet were off the ground and i was flying between beats, but I kept hearing the strong striking of my feet on the ground. I recalled my metronome experiment: listening to a metronome on my phone and syncing my steps up with the beat until I became it. I thought about running chants — my 3 beats then 2 and how they are the form for ghost/not quite tethered Sara — the Sara between beats. Then I thought about Sara the sturdy girl who wants connection and to belong and how her form could be these strong beats: Beat / Beat / Beat / Beat. All stressed, strong beats. Then I turned it into an echo:
I i i
We we we
Us us us
All all all
Here here here
Now now now
I.
Us.
We.
Here.
walk: 40 minutes with Delia
neighborhood / grassy boulevard
51 degrees
wind: 17 mph gusts
Took Delia for a walk on a brisk, yet beautiful afternoon walk. For the first mile, I thought the wind had completely gone, but when we arrived at the grassy boulevard, there it was.
3 favorite images
one: that mid-afternoon light shining through the trees — one tree with yellow leaves in a soft glow
two: movement in a purple flower, black and yellow fuzz, a bumblebee — I think I saw it’s wings opening and closing
three: a small, blob-like shadow, flickering past my feet — I think it was the shadow of a butterfly
Walking through the alley, almost home, I felt a small flare in my calf. I realized suddenly that the flare was in my soleus (that’s the lesser known of the 2 calf muscles). I rarely stretch or work my soleus. I think that that was the calf problem I was having in the marathon. I bet it would help to do some exercises for it!