jan 23, 2017 / 4 miles / 35 degrees
2025: My broad goal when I began this RUN! project was this:
Inspired by Poverty Creek Journal, which I just finished reading, this story project is structured around a daily log of my training. As I briefly record some details of my run, I hope to add in reflections on running, reading, writing, thinking, feeling, engaging, surviving (post-2016) and being/becoming.
The project also includes my running stories and a resources page where I’m archiving books, movies, blogs, articles and more that shape my process (mentally, physically, emotionally) of training to run for four hours without stopping.
see: STORY blog description
On this day in 2017, the focus of my project began to sharpen, as I wrote about wanting to give attention to my other senses:
I wish I could articulate the sense of disconnection I feel when my sight is fuzzy. It’s as if I’m running in my own bubble. I’d like to work on developing my other senses to compensate for this disconnection and to embrace experiencing the world differently: to hear it or smell it or touch it, not just see it.
I think I’ll challenge myself to try this out.
jan 23, 2018 / 4 miles / 25 degrees
2025: This is very Minneapolis; people cross-coutnry skiing in the street!
About an hour before I went running, my daughter and I took Delia the dog for a walk and we saw people cross country skiing in the street. Don’t think I’ve ever seen that before.
jan 23, 2019 / 4 miles / 25 degrees
2025: I have yet to take up this project in earnest. I keep intending to and then do something else instead. Maybe today is the day?
I suppose 17, feels like 10 is cold but I was warm. Sweating. Less than a mile in, most of me was almost too warm. Except for my fingers, which always take the longest. Pushed my sleeves up after the lake street bridge. Then shifted my buff from my head to my neck. By mile 2, I wished I had worn a different hat–maybe a baseball cap instead of the thick teal stocking cap I had on. At the end of the run, I unzipped my jacket and took off my gloves. How cold does it need to be before I’m not hot at the end of a run? Not sure I want to find out, but I probably will if I try running outside later this week or early next week.
Writing that last paragraph makes me want to experiment with ways to describe the unlayering process that occurs as I run–both literally, as I shed gloves and buff, but also metaphorically as I remove layers of doubt, anxiety, restlessness.
jan 23, 2020 / 2.3 miles / 32 degrees
2025: A useful article to remember:
Read a great article about using figurative language yesterday, How to Use Simile and Metaphor Like a Boss
Metaphors and similes have two parts. There’s the tenor (the original subject we’re trying to describe) and the vehicle (the compared object we’re borrowing qualities from). So if we look at Robert Burns’s poem “A Red, Red Rose,” we see “O my Luve is like a red, red rose.” Love would be the tenor (subject) and rose would be the vehicle (object). Metaphors and similes work only when they illuminate, that is, when they help us better understand or see something by way of comparison. They should feel both apt and surprising—a hard balance! If the tenor and the vehicle seem too similar, the comparison won’t be surprising or illuminating for the reader. You really want to compare apples to oranges, not Fuji apples to McIntoshes. Or, better yet, try comparing apples to baby birds.
jan 23, 2023 / 4.1 miles / 24 degrees
2025: A cool project to remember:
This morning, I found an amazing poetry project by Anna Swanson called “The Garbage Poems.” It’s a series of found poems composed of words taken from the trash she found at swimming holes. She has an interactive site for the poems where you can create your own garbage poems. You can also read her poems and click on each word to find which garbage it came from. How amazing! I’m very excited to have encountered her work. Not only are these poems amazing, but she has also written many others about wild swimming!
jan 23, 2024 / 4.1 miles / 31 degrees
2025: I like this distinction and have been wanting to write a poem/s using it or about it for a few years now.
A window opening. I like the slight difference that exists between an open window and a window opening. An open window is already open, but a window opening captures the moment when the air first enters and new understandings arrive.