Tag: morning

may 16/3.3 MILES

64 degrees
muggy and windy
mississippi river road north

Was able to get in a quick run between thunderstorms. It’s funny how the winter weather didn’t prevent me from running outside, but these spring thunderstorms are. So humid. At one point during the run, when the walking path dips down and follows alongside the wooded gorge, everything looked weird, almost like I was seeing it through a filter. I wondered if it was my vision then I realized it was steam, trapped in the trees! Yuck.

Before and after the run I worked on having more fun with medical terms. Specifically, more fun with the biomechanics of walking. So much fun! When I started it, I had no idea where it would lead me. This is the unexpected result:

It starts with a step, versions and variations

Version One:

“Where does it start? Muscles tense. One leg a pillar, holding the body upright between the earth and sky. The other a pendulum, swinging from behind. Heel touches down. The whole weight of the body rolls forward onto the ball of the foot. The big toes pushes off, and the delicately balanced weight of the body shifts again. The legs reverse position. It starts with a step and then another step and then another that add up like taps on a drum to a rhythm, the rhythm of walking (Rebecca Solnit, Wanderlust).”

variation
It starts with a step:
heel touches down
weight rolls forward
onto ball of foot
big toe pushes off
body shifts
legs reverse
step + step + step + step + step + step + step = walking

Version Two:

The biomechanics of a step: The Stance Phase in 5 parts

  1. Heel strike/the heel first touches ground
  2. Early flatfoot/from when the foot is flat until body’s center of gravity passes over foot, here the foot is loose and floppy
  3. Late flatfoot/body past center of gravity, heel beginning to lift, foot is rigid
  4. Heel rise/the heel rises off the ground
  5. Toe off/the toe lifts off the ground.

variation
the heel strikes
on the ground,
not out at the plate or
because of unjust working conditions.

early flatfoot
a police officer with a morning shift.

late flatfoot
another officer, working the night shift.

heel rise
apparently I was wrong about why the heel was striking.
It is because of unjust working conditions.
She and other foot workers are refusing to lift anything off the ground until their demands are met, namely adequate health care.
They are rising up!

toe off
Management is becoming increasingly irritated by the peaceful strikers.
All mechanical operations have been shut down.
How can the toe be lifted off the ground when the heel won’t do her job?
The early and late flatfoots, who have both finished their shifts, are called in to force the heel and her compatriots to submit.
Neither of them are happy about it.
They’re tired and want to go to bed.
Besides, they agree with the heel and are angry with management.

Version Three:

The biomechanics of a step: The Muscles

During the heel strike/early flat foot phase the anterior compartment muscles work to gently lower the foot onto the ground. The anterior compartment muscles are the tibialis anterior muscle, the extensor hallicus longus, and the extensor digitorum longus. .

During the late flatfoot to heel rise phase the posterior compartment muscles control the body so it doesn’t fall forward. The posterior compartment muslces are the gastrocnemius, the soleum and the plantaris.

variation
During the strike, the heel is confronted by some well-meaning but naive co-workers who are urging her to reconsider her tactics. “Why not ask nicely?” the tibialis anterior muscle suggests. “Yes!” agree the extensor hallicus longus and the extensor digitorum longus, “if we take a gentle approach and try to reason with them, management is sure to see that we deserve better!”

Listening in on their conversation, early flatfoot rolls her eyes and can be heard to mutter dismissively to late flatfoot, “yeah right.”

Heel refuses to listen to the anterior compartment muscles. “We will strike!” she declares. She is joined by many others, including the posterior compartment muscles. The gastrocnemius and the soleum help by reassuring the crowd of striking workers and the plantaris delivers the strikers’ demands to management.

Version Four:

The biomechanics of a step: The Swing Phase in Three Parts

  1. early swing/after toe is off the ground, just until it is next to opposite foot
  2. midswing/the swinging foot passes by the opposite foot
  3. late swing/lasts from end of midswing until heel strike

variation
The striking heel, along with the toe and the ball of the foot, soon realize that their tactics are not working. Management is refusing to consider their demands. They reluctantly determine that their only option is to walk out. To do this, they need the help of the other foot. The dorsiflexors of the ankle joint are enlisted to initiate the swing phase so that the toe can try to convince the workers in the opposite foot to collaborate on the direct action. The big toe is successful with her negotiations. So successful that not only does the opposite foot agree to the plan, but so do early and late flatfoots. Slowly and steadily the feet trade off steps. One heel strikes, one foot is flat, one toe lifts off. The other heel strikes, the other foot is flat, the other toe lifts off. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step. Step.

note: The technical information for the versions comes from these sources:

I had not intended to write about the heel striking, but I’m glad I did. At some point, pretty far into the process, I realized that the management was me. And the workers were going on strike because I wasn’t taking care of myself properly. This version of the biomechanics is very different from Solnit’s romantic understanding of walking. I think I went in the direction that I did because I associate learning/being curious about the technical aspects of walking with injury. Why else would I want to dissect the process and learn the specific names of muscles, bones and joints?

may 14/4.2 MILES

60 degrees
mississippi river road path north

I didn’t have time to post my log entry yesterday so I’m posting it now. A decent run. My legs were pretty sore after running for over 90 minutes on Saturday. Having heard Britney Spear’s “Toxic” on the radio and remembering how I had put it on a playlist from 2012, I decided to add it to a playlist I’m using now. As usual, I put the music on shuffle and here’s what came up:

I Sing the Body Electric/Fame
The Jeffersons/Ja’net Dubois
Landslide/Fleetwood Mac
Love Song/Sara Bareilles
Let’s Go Crazy/Prince
Body Count/Justin Timberlake
Cheap Thrills/Sia
Sorry/Justin Bieber
The Flesh Failures (Let the Sunshine In)/Hair
Toxic/Britney Spears
She’s A Bad Mama Jama/Carl Carlton
Renegade/Styx

Last week I mentioned listening to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy.” Looking up the lyrics for it, I’m struck by how few of them I had ever actually understood or paid attention to. I never realized he sang, “search for the purple banana” or “We’re all excited/But we don’t know why/Maybe it’s cause/We’re all gonna die.” At the beginning of the song he speaks: “Electric word, life” which makes me think of the first song I heard during my run: “I Sing the Body Electric.” This song is from the movie Fame and takes its title, I assume, and nothing else from the Walt Whitman poem of the same name.

I like this idea of the body as electric. As something charged with meaning and energy, exciting, alive. To be celebrated. To be used. To be used to experience and express joy. I’ve been working on a poem the past few days that speaks to this celebration of the body electric, although I haven’t been framing it that way. Maybe I should. Something doesn’t seem quite right about the poem so far:

The Joy of Running

The joy of running is not
reckless abandon
an all out sprint,
arms flailing,
feet fleeing
from the imaginary monsters on the playground.
And it’s not focused aggression
lungs burning
muscles aching
mind calculating 
better splits and faster races.
The joy of running is
the confident grace
of a body that knows its value
and celebrates movement’s magic
gliding easily through the world.
One foot striking the ground and then the other
feeling the grit on the path
but not the mechanics of the motion.

This poem is a reaction to, and perhaps rejection of, the idea that to run joyfully is to run like you did as kid: unhinged. It’s inspired by my deep appreciation for confident, graceful bodies moving fluidly and with little effort. And it’s an attempt to put into words my thoughts, started in this entry, about magic and the mechanics of walking.

I like Leaves of Grass–the parts of it that I’ve read. I should really read the whole thing carefully. Just now, I read “I Sing the Body Electric.” Intense, especially the section on the bodies of slaves at the auction. He concludes the poem with this celebration of various body parts:

excerpt from I Sing the Body Electric

Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids,
Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,
Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the ample side-round of the chest,
Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger-joints, finger-nails,
Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-balls, man-root,
Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
Leg fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body or of any one’s body, male or female,
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body,
The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!
——–

The body electric as the soul. I want to think about that some more.

may 13/10 MILES

60 degrees
mississippi river road north/hennepin bridge/stone arch bridge/mississippi river road south

Scott and I ran together this morning. A tough run. Why? Not sure. Maybe it was the hills: the Franklin hill and the I-35W hill. Or maybe it was the temperature. Warmer with more sun. My body hasn’t adjusted to it being warmer yet. Had a few moments on the run where I wanted to stop and probably would have if Scott hadn’t been there to encourage me to keep going. My legs felt so tired. Not injured, just tired. Favorite part of the route was running downtown. Scott stopped at the halfway point to take this photo on the Hennepin Avenue bridge (note, 13 may 2025: Scott quit instagram sometime in the last year because, he says, it sucks. I don’t disagree, but am still on it for the occasional poetry person and pro runner and because it is the only social media I look at.

may 12/3 MILES

mississippi river road north
57 degrees

Another great morning and another great run. Found myself composing poems to keep my rhythm. At first, the chant was pretty mundane: this is the path/that I like to/take all the time or this is the path/that I run on/most of the time. I came up with a variation on this that had 2 lines with four beats and one with three, like 2 measures with eighth notes and one with a triplet, but I can’t remember it. I played around a lot with how I matched my feet to the words. Sometimes I chanted a word–mostly in my head, but occasionally out loud–with each step. I did this when I wanted to go a little faster.

this is the path
step, step, step, step or ♩♩♩♩

When I wanted to go slower, I chanted one word for each two steps.

this step is step
the ♩ path ♩

So much fun. I’m a musician who played clarinet for over 20 years (only occasionally now), so I like to think about things musically. Rhythm and beats might become a new focus on some of my runs.

In the last mile, I came up with a different chant. It was inspired by Marie Howe’s discussion of poetry as counter-spell in her interview for On Being:

Poetry has a kind of trancelike quality still. It has the quality of a spell still. My daughter came home one day and she said — she did this whole snappy thing. “Don’t make me snap my fingers in a Z formation, explanation, talk to the hand, talk to the wrist. Ooh, girl, you just got dissed.” And it’s this whole thing the girls were doing when they were 11. And I said — a counter spell. It was like a counter spell for a mean girl. And I thought this is what we all need to walk around with, a handful of counter spells. And, and poetry, when you think of its roots, is that.

this is my charm
against all harm
this is my spell
as you can tell
it works real well
I mean really
but it did not
work in the rhyme

It’s a fun challenge to try and compose lines on the spot, while you’re running at a brisk pace (8:45 minute per mile, at that point). I wasn’t happy with the last two lines and how they didn’t work for the cadence. So, after I finished my run, I came up with these lines instead:

I hope you see
but it did not
fit in the slot

this is my spell
as you can tell
it works real well
I mean really
I hope you see
but it did not
fit in the slot

may 10/3 MILES

62 degrees
mississippi river road south

Didn’t have to wear my pink jacket today, which is great because it means it was warm enough to run just in a t-shirt but also annoying because it means I no longer had a pocket for my iPhone and had to wear an armband to carry it.  Listened to a different playlist. The final song that played before I finished was Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy.” I had put that on the playlist right after he died last spring. I listened to it on my first runs (more like, run/walks) after the injury where my knee so swollen that I couldn’t walk. My knee didn’t really hurt, it just wouldn’t work and I didn’t know how to walk. Such a strange and unsettling feeling. I never think about how to walk.

How does walking work? I think it’s time for more fun with medical terms!

More Fun with Medical Terms!

Walking involves: 1. moving your hips and thighs backwards as you push off, 2. moving your legs forward, 3. striking the floor with your foot in a heel to toe action and 4. shifting your weight as you move from one leg to the other. A ton of muscles, with fantastical, sometimes ridiculous, often overly-complicated, names are used in this process. Such as the following:

semitendinosus, semimembranosus, biceps femoris
the first two terms
aren’t that hard to figure out how to pronounce
so I’ll focus on the third.
I’d like to say that the femoris in biceps femoris is pronounced: fee moor is
like some sort of Harry Potter spell.
I’d like to say that
but I can’t
because it’s pronounced: femme a ris

semitendinousus, 
semimembranosus, 
biceps femoris
There’s a nice cadence to these three
semi tendi nou sus
/ ♫ ♫ ♩ ♩
semi membra nou sus/ ♫ ♫ ♩ ♩
bi ceps fem o ris/ ♩ ♩ ♪♪♪

semitendinosus, semimembranosus, biceps femoris
are all hamstring muscles
that come from the ischial (iss keel) tuberosity of the pelvis
which is, according to the Merriam Webster medical dictionary,
“a bony swelling on the posterior part
of the superior ramus
of the ischium
that gives attachment to
various muscles and
bears the weight of the body in sitting.”
What’s the ramus, you might ask,
and what makes it so damn superior
(and gives me such a headache)?*
Would you settle for:
part of the hip bone,
along with the ilium and pubis?
It’s superior because THEY said so and
because it’s not the other two parts: the body or the inferior ramus.
speaking of the THEY,
as I attempt to read and understand
these medical terms,
I’m struck by how alienating they are.
who, but a select few, can actually
understand and retain this stuff?
Scott generously suggests that
these terms are complicated and abstract
so as to help doctors have some professional distance
from people,
to be able to put their feelings aside
and focus on doing their job: healing patients.
maybe
but I also think it’s a way to safeguard an industry and
to alienate us from our own bodies.
how many of you can imagine the “ischial tuberosity”
as a real part of yourself?
I’ll admit
sonically, ischial (iss keel) tuberosity is intriguing
I might go hear the lead singer of a band with that name
as long as I brought ear plugs.
but, when I hear those words, I don’t immediately think,
oh yeah, the sitting bones,
which is what they are—
the bones that make it possible for us to sit—and
what, I learned only after reading wikipedia,
they are informally called.

*Someone else gets this reference, right? I’m not the only one who has random lyrics from musicals like Hair pop into their head, am I? Of course not!

note: the initial source for this experiment was Muscles Engaged While Walking, an popular article for a fitness site. I tried to start with more technical sources, but they made my brain start to melt, so I eased my way into it with this article and then, after some exposure to the terms, moved on to other sites.

Sadly, I’ve run out of time to have even more fun with medical terms. Sometime soon I’d like to play around with sartorius, which is the longest muscle in your body, stretching down form top of your thigh, curving inside your thigh, ending at the inside part of your knee.

may 9/5 MILES

56 degrees
mississippi river road north

Wow! Another beautiful morning. Can it be like this all year? Wasn’t planning to, but as I ran towards the Franklin hill I started composing a poem in my head. Is it a poem? Or just a rhythm to repeat in order to create a steady cadence? Whatever it is, it was fun and it worked. My running felt strong and steady. And the chant helped me to slow down my heart rate after the tough hill. Because I didn’t want to forget it, as I was running, I recorded myself reciting it into my voice memo app.

There’s a path

there’s a path
there’s a path
that was closed
that was closed
up until
up until
late last fall
late last fall

there’s a path
that was closed
up until
late last fall
there’s a path
that was closed
up until
late last fall

then they opened it back up
then they opened it back up
to the runners thump thump
and the bikers thump thump
and the walkers thump thump
and the drivers thump thump

on the path
on the path
there is a hill
there is a hill
a steep, long hill
a steep, long hill

as you turn back up the hill
you’ll see a bridge at the top
look at it, look at it
never stop, never stop

there
was
a
hill
there
was
a
hill
that
I
climbed
up
that
I
climbed
up
now
that
I’m
done
slow
down
the
run
now
that
I’m
done
slow
down
the
run

may 7/5.15 MILES

51 degrees
franklin loop

Great run! Listened to headphones and my running playlist. Put it on shuffle:

Furr/Blitzen Trapper
Cheap Thrills/Sia
I’m Going to Go Back There Some Day/Gonzo
Skyfall/Adele
Hey Ladies/Beastie Boys
Another One Bites the Dust/Queen
Uptown Funk/Bruno Mars
The Best of Times/Styx
Don’t Dream It’s Over/Crowded House
Hot for Teacher/Van Halen
Baby/Justin Bieber
Learn to Fly/Foo Fighters
Pinball Number Count: 4/The Pointer Sisters

Running with a playlist can feel isolating; I can’t hear or interact as much with the world around me. But sometimes that isolation is necessary and liberating. Today, running with my playlist was great. It put me in this weird, dreamy state. And, when “Baby” by Justin Bieber came on around mile 4, I felt a huge smile spread through me, settling in the top of my head. As I ran, my head tingled, partly from my sweat mixing with the wind and partly from a euphoric feeling of openness and love. A runner’s high, of sorts, complements of Justin Bieber!

After my run, I had fun taking some of the lyrics from the songs on the list and turning them into poems. These are erasure poems, but I’m just posting them straight. For now.

1. Furr

wandered aimlessly
howling in song
listenin’ for the leaves
gently ushered in To a dream of running
through 
And
 Across ancient water

2. Cheap Thrills

Come on, come on,
dance
dance
have fun
high on the beat
love
love
love
feel
don’t need

3. I’m Going to Go Back There Someday

familiar,
Almost unreal,
far away
someday.

Sun calls.
I belong
I know the way.
someday.

midair. flyin’ invisible
not a word
space, place?
just someday.

someday.

4. Another One Bites the Dust

the sound of feet,
To the sound of the beat
I’m ready, yes, I’m ready
two feet Repeat

5. Baby

whoa
my heart
I believe
And I wanna play anything
dream always
amazing
my heart
Yeah Yeah Yeah

UPDATE:I turned the poems with hidden lyrics. When you hover over the poem, you can see the lyrics. Read them here.

may 6/8 MILES

51 degrees
mississippi river road path south/lake nokomis/mississippi river road path north

Another great morning. Sunny. Not too much wind. Great air quality. Wish I could say the same about my run. Most of it just seemed hard. I couldn’t really focus on anything but how I didn’t feel the greatest. But I did it. There was a moment on the “moustache bridge” (called that because someone, at some point, spray painted a hipster handlebar moustache on it. It’s no longer there, but the name stuck with us–me, Scott and the kids) when I really wanted to stop. I could almost feel myself stopping, but I didn’t. I made it through the moment and kept running. Eventually, around 7.25 miles,  I did stop to walk for a minute. I’m fine with that. Hopefully tomorrow’s 5 mile ran will be better.

Part of my route today was on the Minnehaha Creek trail, from Minnehaha Falls to Lake Nokomis. When I lived in that neighborhood, I used to walk with my kids on that trail a lot. We named all the bridges: the duck bridge, the echo bridge, the step bridge, the hole bridge, the stinky bridge. A few years ago, I made a video about walking on that path:

may 5/4 MILES

59 degrees
mississippi river road path north

Yet another beautiful day. Sunny. Hardly any wind. Everything seemed to be moving gently, without hurry. Even the cars on the river road approached as if they were on a leisurely Sunday drive. Tried out my new running shoes for the first time. Excellent. Dependable. Cheap. Since I started running almost 6 years ago, I’ve worn Saucony Grid Cohesion shoes. $39.99. I think my first pair were version 4. Now I’m on version 10. An intense blue with coral stripes. Great for someone with a “neutral” (as opposed to pronate or supine) foot strike and a super wide (thanks, freakish bunions!) foot. I used to be envious of Scott and his fancy and brightly colored $100+ Nike shoes. Why can’t I find cool, high-tech shoes like that to fit my foot? But for the past several versions, my bottom-of-the-line basic Saucony’s have been available in more than boring white or gray. I’ve worn bright orange, teal and now a deep blue.

In yesterday’s post, I wrote about slow time and gave myself a task: write a poem using “syncing” unexpectedly. This morning, I started the poem; I finished it just after my run. It’s inspired by bits and pieces from Gros’ book and my experiences running.

how do you slow down time?

stop thinking
about things you must do!
right now!
before the day ends!
and the sun starts sinking
below the trees
and behind the garage.

start drinking
your coffee earlier
so that you can wake up
and get outside
before that cooing bird starts syncing
up with the rest of the chorus:
the barking dogs,
the rumbling cars,
the humming city.

move your legs.
first one, then the other.
head to a field or the woods or a path,
anywhere on the edge
of civilization.
maybe above a gorge or under a bridge?
walk or run,
both will work,
as long as you move
 without haste or urgency.

use your lungs:
breathe in deeply
through your nose,
with your diaphragm.
as your abdomen extends,
so does your invitation to the world
to enter and fill you
with wonder and gratitude.

feel your skin
as it absorb the trees,
the blue sky
the freshly cut grass
and releases toxic worries
through its pores.

Attend to the beauty of being
not doing anything but moving
,
listening,
looking,
feeling
time
slowly
drip.

may 3/3.15 MILES

54 degrees
mississippi river road path south

What a beautiful morning for a run! I reminded myself, before leaving the house, to listen today. Birds. Cars, Crunching feet. The most unusual sound was a group of kids singing…what were they singing? Some popular song that I almost, but can’t quite, remember. They were on the other side of the river road, near Minnehaha Academy. I’m not sure what they were doing, other than being loud and joyful. Oh…I also heard water emptying out of the sewer pipe, just below the path. It wasn’t quite gushing, but was doing more than trickling as it traveled down the slope of the gorge. The water probably didn’t look too pretty–sometimes it’s a ghoulish green–but it sure sounded pretty. Like a waterfall. (note: several hours after writing this, I happened to walk by this pipe. I was much closer and slower than when I was running, so I got a better look. It was very pretty and the water was clear.) Tried running faster for 9 minutes and then stopping and walking for a minute. It was somewhat successful, but my hamstring was still getting tight. I better start doing some core exercises today.

After returning from my run, I sat on my deck and read a few chapters of A Philosophy of Walking by Frédéric Gros. I just picked it up from the library on Monday. I can’t remember where I found out about it. One of the many sources on walking that I looked at last week, I guess. I’m really digging it. I love walking almost as much as I love running, but for different reasons. I’m interested in pushing at what those reasons are and how running and walking are beneficial and harmful to me.

In Gros’ first chapter, “Walking is Not a Sport,” he defines sport, mostly negatively, and contrasts it with walking. I feel inspired to play with his prose. In the first part of the following experiment, I’m using his actual text, but replacing “sport” with running. In the second part, I’m offering my own response.

Walking is not Running/Running is not Walking

Walking is not running.

Running is a matter of techniques and rules, scores and competition, necessitating lengthy training: knowing the postures, learning the right movements. Then, a long time later, come improvisation and talent.

Running also obviously means cultivation of endurance, of a taste for effort, for discipline. An ethic. A labor.

Walking is not running.

Walking is the best way to go more slowly than any other method that has ever been found. To walk, you need to start with two legs. The rest is optional. If you want to go faster, then don’t walk, do something else: drive, slide or fly.

Running is not walking.

Walking is a matter of moving without a useful purpose. Meandering. Wandering. Getting lost.

Walking, especially when done at the glacial pace best suited for paying close attention, doesn’t demand endurance or require too much effort. It’s undisciplined and prone to unruly wandering off the path, dawdling.

Running is not walking.

Running is the best way to deplete excessive energy and restlessness that I have ever tried. Run for only 30 minutes, not even that speedily, and your body feels grateful for having been used.

To run, you need to start with two legs and a urge to fly, not fast, but free. The rest is optional. If you don’t want to fly, then don’t run, do something else: sit, watch or sleep.

may 2/5 MILES

46 degrees
mississippi river road path north

As I ran, I tried to keep thinking about poets, intense feelings, whether or not living “like an engine with the governor off” is a good thing and how this relates to running. I couldn’t. Not because I don’t have any thoughts about these issues, but because I was distracted by an impulse to monitor my pace, heart rate and running form. And preoccupied with thoughts of leg injuries and how I probably need to strengthen my core.

What else do I remember? There was wind in my face as I ran north and at my back, helpfully pushing me along, as I turned around and went south. The Franklin hill wasn’t too bad. My pulse seemed to go slower as I went faster. The trees at my favorite part of the gorge are covered in leaves, making it hard to see the floor of the gorge. I think I encountered 4 or 5 dogs and about 15 humans, some walking the dogs, some walking alone, some running and some biking. I smiled at several of them, but didn’t speak. Neither did they. I don’t remember hearing a single bird or the wind rustling or the gravel crunching or traffic moving.

Even if I don’t remember thinking about poetry and intense feelings, I’m sure I did, at least fleetingly. And, even if I didn’t think about it consciously, the ideas were there, hovering around me as I ran, inspired by the discussion I started about George Sheehan in my log entry yesterday.

Sheehan argues that we should try to be poets, “responding to everything around us and inside us as well,” like engines with the governor off. Then he adds: “The best most of us can do is be a poet an hour a day.” And laments: “There are times, more often than the good times, when I fail. I never do pierce the shield. I return with a shopping list of things to do tomorrow. The miraculous has gone unseen. The message has gone unheard.” His words got me thinking and inspired me to create:

A 60-minute Poet

George Sheehan claims that,
for an hour a day,
while we’re running,
we can try to be poets.
Feeling everything intensely and without restrictions.
Like an engine with its governor off.
We can try.
But we’ll frequently fail
A thick smog of obligations, worries and regrets
makes it harder to breathe.
And to see.
And to feel.
And to remember to let go and let in
more air,
more ideas,
more of the world.

A Deep Core Workout for 60-minute-a-day Poets?

60 minutes a day of intense feelings seems like a lot.
How can we train ourselves to feel deeply for that long?
What sort of strength and stretching exercises do we need to build up our “deep core” feelings?
To prevent hyper-awareness related injuries brought on by overuse or improper form?
To help us stretch our imagination?
Limber up our ideas, so we can bend, twist, contort them?
Strengthen our resolve against the worries and regrets that distract us?
Lengthen our vision to extend farther, beyond our myopic preoccupations?
Quicken our reflexes for faster responsiveness?
Attune our senses to the too-often invisible or ignored encounters?

I’m thinking about “core” workouts lately because so many things that I’ve been reading recommend core exercises for preventing injuries. A strong core stabilizes your bones, joints, muscles and internal organs. I’m terrible with scientific/medical terminology–I can’t seem to retain the information that I read or hear–but I’m fascinated by the names and some the descriptions of the “deep core” muscles, especially the multifidus.

The Multifidus

The multifidus
pronounced: mull tiff a dus
The muscle consisting of a number of fleshy
not flashy or flesh-eating or flesh-colored or thin, but plump and succulent
 and tendinous
sounds like tenderness or tendon-less, even though it means “consisting of tendons”
fasciculi,
pronounced: fa sick you lee or fa sick you lie, depending on if you want to rhyme it with an old oak tree or a key lime pie
which fill up the groove
the groove in the dirt trail, winding through the gorge? the groove of a Funkadelic album? what you’re in when it’s going well?
on either side of the spinous processes of the vertebrae,
not a process but a bony protrusion where the muscle attaches to the vertebrae
from the sacrum
pronounced: say crum, as in, “say crumb, why don’t you hop into my mouth?”
to the axis
aka C-2, aka epistropheus. Contains a bony protuberance, another fun word to say, on which the C-1 vertebrae rotates.  

april 27/4 MILES

34 degrees
mississippi river road path south

Cold today. Brrr. It was 59 degrees in February, now 34 at the end of April. Sounds about right for Minnesota. Didn’t mind too much. I like running at this temperature. I could have done without the wind, though. When I looped back at the halfway point I was greeted by a stiff 15 mph wind, blowing directly in my face at first and then off to the side later, almost like a not-so-gentle nudge to move along.

Thinking about the weather, I’m reminded of a great blog post about walking and poetry that I read a few days ago by the poet Edward Hirsch titled My Pace Provokes My Thought (note from 28 April 2022: originally, this essay was posted on Hirsch’s blog. It’s no longer available there, but I found it here). I made note of a few lines that I especially liked in the essay, including:

the inner and outer weather

The full line is: “Wandering, reading, writing–these three adventures are for me intimately linked. They are all ways of observing both the inner and outer weather, of being carried away, of getting lost and returning.”

Here are a few more lines that I particularly liked:

Cool Lines, a list

  • my thoughts modify my pace; my pace provokes my thoughts
  • Saunter off into the unknown,
    heading into strange terrain.
  • It had dignity. It wasn’t overly familiar. It kept its privacy, its wit
  • it turns out that I like my alienation mobile, fluid, transformative
  • walking meant “to roll about and toss,”
  • to turn what is transient into something permanent, immutable
  • Walking is so common
  • It disappears in plain sight, too pedestrian (i.e., commonplace) to notice.
  • a type of dream-work, a form of associative thinking
  • An aimless meandering intermingles with–it is transformed into–a type of intentional and revisionary thinking

I also responded to a few lines. Hirsch’s lines are italicized.

a poem often starts as a daydream
so does a run, or rather, a run enters into a daydream, starting as a task.

one moment you’re following a leisurely trail; 
the next you’re staring into the abyss.
The run is mundane. Routine. Focused on mechanics and efficiency. Then something happens. Not always, but sometimes. An awareness of life beyond the fluid surfaces of my body breaks through. I hear more. I feel more. I am more and less at the same time.

a walk made out of words.
Is it possible to capture the rhythms and feelings of a run in words? How?

april 25/5 MILES

57 degrees
mississippi river road path north

Another great morning for running. Intended to ruminate on the differences between running and walking in terms of how I think and generate ideas for the entire 46 minute run. It didn’t happen. I can’t really remember much of anything that I thought about. Devoted most of my attention to my running form and keeping my pulse steady.

Running Form

Keep it slow
don’t start fast
Keep it steady
find your rhythm
Breathe     i       n
Breathe     o  u  t
Check your pulse
Lift, lift, lift the knees
squeeze the glutes, squeeze the glutes
breathe in, 2, 3
out, 2, 3
drop your shoulders
lead with your chest
relax your arms
loosen your hands
roll an imaginary pencil between your thumb and fingers
l   e   a   n  forward
lift, lift, lift, lift, lift, lift the knees
raise your eyes, stare blankly at the top of the bridge
check your pulse
keep it steady
don’t lose your rhythm
breathe in, 2, 3
out, 2, 3
lift, lift, lift, lift the knees
slow it down
squeeze the glutes, squeeze the glutes
relax your arms
drop your shoulders
breathe in, 2, 3
out 2, 3
check your pulse
lift
lift
swing
swing
pump
breathe in out in out
pump
pump
lift
lift
breathe in out in out
in out in out
in out in out in out
FLY
l  e  a  n
lift
breathe i       n
breathe o  u  t
relax your arms
slow your pace
stop.

april 23/3.15 MILES

51 degrees
mississippi river road path north

Another beautiful morning. A nice run. Can’t really remember that much of it. Ran each mile faster than the last by about 30 seconds. No hamstring pain. Could it be that my “deranged” experiment with injury terms helped? Even though I know that’s not possible, I’d like to think so. The power of poetry!

april 22/10 MILES

57 degrees
mississippi river road path south/lake nokomis/mississippi river road path north

Beautiful. Sunny. Hardly any wind. A perfect spring morning for a long run. Focused on lifting my knees and “activating my glutes.” It helped. My left thigh felt a little sore, but not heavy and I was able to run the entire 10 miles without any problems and without stopping. This is one of the main reasons why I’ve been working so hard these past couple of months on my running. So I could run today for a little over 90 minutes without pain or doubt, on the paths that I love. The Mississippi River Road path, the Minnehaha Creek path, the Lake Nokomis path.

Shortly before leaving for my run, I looked over some notes that I took a couple of months ago about writers who run. The writer/runner Rachel Toor discusses the state of vulnerability that both writing and running create:”When I think harder about it, what I believe running and writing have most in common, at least for me, is the state of vulnerability they leave you in. Both require bravery, audacity, a belief in one’s own abilities, and a willingness to live the clichés: to put it on the line, to dig deep, to go for it. You have to believe in the “it,” and have to believe, too, that you are worthy.”

I wanted to reflect on this statement as I ran. For the most part, I didn’t. I was focused on keeping my breathing steady, making sure I was using my legs properly and enjoying watching the creek as it gently flowed towards the falls. But, about halfway through the run I started having some dark thoughts about my son’s upcoming trip to Europe that he’s taking with many of his 8th grade classmates. He’ll be gone for 10 days. It’s his first time away from home for that long and his first time on a plane. I haven’t been too worried about him. He’s a confident, relaxed kid, so I was surprised that worries about what might happen on the trip were suddenly erupting in my mind. Would the plane crash? Would he get sick? Would something happen at the airport? Then I remembered this notion of a “state of vulnerability.” Running makes you vulnerable. Toor understands this as an opportunity to prove your mettle, to “put it all on the line.” Today during my run, I saw the state of vulnerability as an opportunity to be open, to allow the feelings that I’ve been hiding from myself to surface and be addressed. In the past, my inclination would have been to quickly tamp down my dark thoughts, to dismiss them as ridiculous or overly dramatic. Today, I let myself experience them, allowing them to linger beside me for a few minutes as I ran by the main beach at Lake Nokomis.

In an interview about their documentary, The Runners, the filmmakers talk about the purpose of their project of filming random runners in a park, while asking them serious questions mid-run:
“We were trying to understand what goes on in the minds of runners as they charge through the streets. What does it do to them and what can we find out about ourselves by interrupting them at this moment of vulnerability and clarity?”

I feel like now, almost 400 miles into this project, I’m finally using running to tap into my own vulnerabilities and being willing to acknowledge and accept them.

Hover over the entry to reveal the erasure poem.

april 21/4 MILES

47 degrees
mississippi river road path south

A beautiful morning. The run started and ended well. Somewhere in the middle, after running up and then down a steep hill by Lock and Dam #1 and Wabun Park, my right thigh started to bother me again. It never really hurt, it just became harder to lift. Then, when it became harder to lift, my right calf tightened up too. For 2 or 3 minutes, it was a struggle as I tried very deliberately to lift my right leg, focusing on my glutes and hips. By the last mile, I felt better and was running much faster than I had at the beginning of the run. Strange.

When do you take aches and pains seriously? When should you rest? Tough questions. I’m extremely cautious with my running; I’ve never tried to push myself too hard. It took me two years to build up to running 10ks, 4 years for a 1/2 marathon and now, 6 for a marathon. I have only had one substantial injury.

The Injury, first version

My first big injury happened exactly a year ago in April 2016. I had been struggling with running all winter. Had even taken half of February off–about 2 weeks without running, the longest I had gone since starting in June of 2011. March was okay. But then on April 2, while doing a flip turn at the pool, something suddenly hurt. When I got out of the pool, I was limping. Within a few days, I couldn’t bend my right knee. It was so strange. I forgot how to walk. My leg and my brain couldn’t get the motion right. The most I could manage was shuffling for a block or two. It sucked.

I didn’t know what was wrong with my leg, just that it was not good. Googling medical and sports websites convinced me that I had a meniscus tear (don’t know what is? don’t google it; blissful ignorance is underrated). I went to a sports medicine doctor to verify this diagnosis and discovered that I had a much less catastrophic injury: a bone spur in my knee. A jagged little knob on the inside of my knee. The bone spur wasn’t directly causing my problem; it was the tendon that, after repeatedly rubbing over the spur, had become inflamed. The area around my knee had swollen and I couldn’t bend it properly. The solution: lots of ibuprofen (9 pills a day), lots of ice (3 xs @20 minutes a day) and physical therapy for about 6 weeks. No running, barely any walking. I was able to swim and bike some. I can’t quite remember when I was able to run again–early May? I do know that my first 5K was on my fifth runniversary, June 2, 2016.

A few months after all of this transpired, a friend, who also runs, asked: “Will the bone spur go away?” I didn’t ask, I said. I was so freaked out about the injury and spend so little time in doctor’s offices that I didn’t think to ask. I’ve looked it up online and still am not quite sure. Sometimes spurs dissolve and sometimes they don’t. It hasn’t bothered me since.

Notes:

This is the first version of an account of my injury. In working to express how it feels to run, I’d like to develop this account to more effectively express my emotions surrounding this injury. Right now, it’s pretty boring and lifeless. That might be partly because I don’t like thinking about injuries–it’s my biggest fear. It might also be because I’m uncomfortable describing my experiences, which seem so trivial and ordinary compared to the physical struggles of other people I know.

Where to start on pushing this version?

  • Expand on “it sucked.” So many feelings crammed into those two words! Fear, frustration, anger, resolution and more. Push at these emotions.
  • What does it mean to forget how to walk? What does that feel like?
  • Say more about this: “The solution: lots of ibuprofen (9 pills a day), lots of ice (3 xs @20 minutes a day) and physical therapy for about 6 weeks. No running, barely any walking. I was able to swim and bike some.” Maybe write a list of what I know about running injuries?
  • Write some more questions and answers in response to this: Will the bone spur go away?

Update: After reading this post, I decided to experiment a bit with thinking/writing about injury. The experiment I did today was all about trying to lose some of the fear that haunts my thinking about injury.

 

April 20/6 MILES

40 degrees
mississippi river road path north

A great run. Took it a little faster than I probably should have, with my fastest mile being up the Franklin hill! Stopped and walked to lower my pulse for about 20 seconds midway through mile 4. That was a good idea. Finished strong with hardly any hamstring pain.

Had a lot of great thoughts about the runner’s high and the piece of writing that I had started working on right before my run. I’m including it below. Versions 1-5 were written before my run. Versions 6 and 7 were written right after returning from the run.

The Runner’s High, 7 Versions

Version One

Sometimes when I run
I breathe in deeply.
As my chest rises
so does my heart
and my head
and my shoulders.

I feel vast
expansive
generous.
I am open
to love
to joy
to possibility.

I want to spread my arms wide
and embrace the world.
But I don’t.
It takes up too much space
and would alter my gait.
Instead, I shape my feelings into a smile
that spreads across my face
and extends all the way to my toes.

VERSION TWO

Sometimes when my run is going well, a sense of euphoria spreads through my body. As it extends to the tips of my fingers and to the pit of my stomach, I feel an urge to spread my arms wide, throw back my head and run without fear.

VERSION THREE

Sometimes when I run, I am transformed into someone who feels joy first, not fear. Who is open, not closed. Who wants to spread their arms wide, embracing the world. When I feel like this, I smile to myself. A smile so deep that it reaches all the way to my toes.

VERSION FOUR

What does the runner’s high feel like? It feels like Love. Joy. Generosity. Possibility. An open door. A vulnerable body, stretching out and dissolving into the vastness of the world.

VERSION FIVE

The runner’s high. Feelings of love, joy, generosity and possibility that transform vulnerability into openness, enabling the body to stretch out and dissolve into the vastness of the universe.

VERSION SIX

I want to spread my arms wide and embrace the world. But I don’t. It takes up too much space. It would alter my gait. Besides, when running, you don’t fly with your arms, you fly with your feet. And you don’t embrace the world with a hug but with a breath.

VERSION SEVEN

To be combined with Version One. 

Other times when I run
I breathe in deeply
I fill my lungs with the world
while rhythmically pumping my arms.

I feel strong
fluid
effortless.
I am flying
over the path
above the world
under the dazzling blue sky.

I take in everything and become nothing
as I breathe in          and out                        .

april 18/3.1 MILES

54 degrees
mississippi river road path north

Ran in the rain. Didn’t mean to. Thought front had passed. It hadn’t. At the start, everything was just wet, still dripping from the heavy drizzle that had been going on all morning. Feeling the water on my nose, thought it was more dripping, then realized it had started to rain again. I don’t mind running in the rain, especially when I have on my favorite baseball cap and a jacket. Then I hardly notice it.

Not too far from the start of my run on the river road path, the walking/running path dips below the road, down to the ridge of the gorge. In the summer, when the leaves have returned to the trees, it’s a sea of green and nothing else. But from late October until mid-May, the trees are mostly bare. You can see how the earth steeply slopes down to a small bit of woods, with a floor of dirt and dead leaves and a worn path that leads to the river and a sandy beach. You can reach this path by walking down some stone steps that are closed during the winter. I remember the first time I finally noticed this section of the path. It was during early spring a few years ago, after the snow had melted but before anything had started to grow again. It was early morning and a fog was lingering on the tree branches. It was eerie and beautiful. A month or so later, my daughter discovered the steps, which had always been there, in plain sight, but I had ignored, and we hiked down them to the river. Now, it’s one of my favorite places. Today, there wasn’t fog there, just a soft, steady rain, but it was still beautiful. The grayish light made the colors of the early spring trees more intense: a rich brown mixed with vibrant shades of light green. It reminded me of some of the illustrations in one of my favorite books as a kid: Oh What a Busy Day! by Gyo Fujikawa.

Mundane things to note from the run: maybe due to the rain, my watch stopped tracking my run 1.26 miles in. My left leg started to feel heavy again, towards the end of the run. I probably should take at least two days off to let it rest. The wind was bad, about 17 or 18 mph. Running north, it was at my back. When I turned around, it swirled around me and then pushed the rain in my face.

Hover over the log entry to reveal the erasure poem. For more on this poem, see An Unexpected Erasure.

note: The walk down the steps to the river is featured in a short digital story that I created a few years ago.

april 15/2.5 MILES

80 degrees
ywca track

The rain and threat of thunderstorms forced Scott and I to go to the y track. It was hot and steamy and crowded. Even so, for the first twenty minutes it was great. I ran slow and did not care if other runners passed me. I wasn’t even bothered when Scott passed me.  I kept my heart rate down and felt relaxed. Then a class descended on the track and took over. They started with a burst of speed and then slowed way down, first to a jog and then to a walk. Dodging them required speeding up and weaving. My pulse rate soared and I decided to stop. Partly because I was going faster than I wanted, but mostly because I was annoyed that the spell of my happy, relaxed run had been broken. I was not annoyed with the class; they seemed new to running and a bit overwhelmed. I think I heard one class member call out to the other in fear and disbelief when her instructor told them to run a mile: “Is he fucking kidding me?”

Hover over the entry to uncover the erasure poem.

april 14/5.25 MILES

54 degrees
franklin loop

My right hamstring and calf are a bit sore. They have been all week. But, this run was better than my run on Wednesday when I took it out too fast and had to walk for a few minutes between miles 2 and 3. As always, heard lots of chirping birds and the wind gently shaking the leaves. Lots of cars. The hum of the city. And some random men’s voices yelling, or was it cheering?, from deep in the gorge, near the river bank. When I first heard them I thought they were on the water, rowing. I looked around, but couldn’t see any boats*. Later, when I returned to the same area, near the end of my run, I heard them again. This time there were more voices. Who were they? What were they doing down there? Were they just below me, or on the other side of the river? As I ran above, I scanned the gorge, trying to find them. I never did.

*An alternative name for a competitive rowing boat is a shell. I know this because I just looked it up. I’m a bit disappointed. I was hoping for a more interesting name. I do like the names of the different rowers, like the Engine room (the rowers in the middle of the boat), also known as the Power house or the Hammer (someone who is known for power more than technique). I’ve never rowed, other than on the rowing machines at 7 Flags Fitness Center in high school, but I’m pretty sure I’d be a Hammer.

Hover over the first paragraph to reveal an erasure poem with advice for this beautiful spring day.

april 12/3.15 MILES

47 degrees
mississippi river road path north

Another gray day. Decided to listen to my playlist to motivate and distract me. Today distraction was helpful. While listening to music, I generated some interesting ideas for writing. Here are two:

idea one: Write about vision fogginess. As I was running up the hill under the Lake Street Bridge, everything looked foggy, like when my goggles fog up during a swim. I’d like to add details about learning to swim during open swim without being able to see, which occurred before my vision diagnosis. Learning this was more useful than I could have anticipated.

idea two: Mash up song lyrics from my running playlist with moments from the run.

Here are the songs that I listened to during my short and fairly quick (maybe too quick) run:

  • CAN’T STOP THE FEELING!/Justin Timberlake
  • At the Ballet/cast from A Chorus Line
  • I Can Do That/Wayne Cilento, A Chorus Line
  • Grease/Franki Vali
  • Hey Ladies/Beastie Boys
  • Furr/Blitzen Trapper
  • Without You/Usher
  • Skyfall/Adele
  • Sorry/Justin Bieber

I started working on this idea and as I listened to lyrics, I ended up crafting a poem out of them alone, instead of adding my own thoughts about running. Does it work? Not sure, but it made me think and it was fun! I’ll try this again. 
I got this feeling, inside my bones
like a metronome
Nothing flat
only real
all-knowing
I heard my mother
I am lost
I won’t run, I won’t fly
This is the end where we start
Put your hand in my hand.
You know I try, but I don’t do too well
I know you know I’ll go, I’ll go and then you go,
you go
I know
all 

I could keep tweaking this but I’m afraid that I’ll edit it down too much. I’ll leave it like this…for now. The line about hearing my mother seems to shape the poem. She died in 2009 and oftentimes I think about her when I’m running. I’ve learned to live with my grief, but it haunts me, not always in bad ways. Sometimes it comforts me to have that grief. When my memories of my mom are fuzzy, I’m still connected to her through it.

Update: I edited the poem a little more and coded it so that when you hover over the text it reveals that full lyrics and song title. I also discovered that this type of poem is a Cento. Read the revised version here.

april 9/4 MILES

57 degrees
mississippi river road north

This morning, as I approached the river road path, I encountered the turn around point for a 10 mile race. The leaders of the race were just arriving. For a few seconds, I ran alongside them: me on the path, them on the road. Then they glided past me. As I kept running, I saw more runners. First a trickle, then a downpour. In spite of myself, I ran too quickly. I wasn’t trying to keep up, I was just swept up in the energy of all the bodies, charged with excitement and fatigue. Eventually, I was able to steady myself and slow down.

 

Hover over the log entry to read the hidden erasure poem.

april 8/10 MILES

53 degrees
mississippi river road path south/lake nokomis/mississippi river road path north

10 miles on a beautiful morning. Wasn’t sure if I’d run the 10 today or tomorrow, but once I started I knew that this run was my long run. I can tell that all the training and the increased mileage has made me more mentally tough. I used to spend significant portions of my longish (6+ miles) fighting against doubts and the desire to stop or start walking. Not today. There was no question that I would be running all 10 miles.

As always, heard lots of birds and fragments of conversation. Encountered lots of runners, most of whom passed me. In the last few miles, I was passed by 3 people twice who were running in the same direction as me. I noticed one of them stopping, so I expected he might pass me again, but the other two were a mystery. When did I pass each of them? Where and why did they stop? Maybe they didn’t stop. Maybe my brain was just on a loop, seeing the same people over and over again. Maybe, having run for over an hour, I had entered a new reality, where time didn’t progress but looped. If I had run any longer, would they have passed me a third time?

Random Memories of the Run

  • About 5 minutes into the run, heard a dog barking repeatedly, almost rhythmically. Decided to count the intervals between barks. Of course, the dog stopped barking, just as I started counting.
  • While running right by Minnehaha creek, heard a splash and a snort. Tried to see what it was but couldn’t. I wonder what critter made that noise? A muskrat? Beaver?
  • Encountered a bunch of runners just about to start a group run as I crested the hill between the Lock and Dam no. 1 and Wabun park about two miles into my run. Encountered the same group having finished their run and saying good-bye as I returned to Wabun on my way home. I wonder, how long of a run had they done? And, did they remember seeing me just before they started? Did they wonder the same about me?
  • Saw a woman walking her dog by the creek in a winter jacket and stocking cap. Wasn’t she hot, I wondered. Maybe she wondered the opposite of me in my running shorts: Isn’t she cold?
  • As I reached the halfway point of my run, near the little beach at Lake Nokomis, saw some kayakers in the water, many of them just about to get out. No ice on the lake! In just over 2 months, I’ll be swimming across that lake!
  • At about 9 miles, I felt really good. I smiled, knowing that I could run for much longer. At about 9.6 miles, I felt sore. I smiled again, knowing that I only had to run for a few more minutes.

Hover over the second paragraph for a hidden haiku.

april 7/3.25 MILES

41 degrees
mississippi river road path (south)*

A nice, easy run, with a faster last mile. It may have been only 41 degrees, but it was sunny and april and there was hardly any wind. It felt like spring. I love when spring arrives; it means summer is coming. And so are early morning runs and open swimming and biking and baseball and sitting on the deck, drinking a beer and going to outdoor concerts and walking around late in the evening with no jacket and reading by the lake and writing outside and hiking by the mississippi and going to the north shore and the UP and throwing pebbles into lake superior and obsessively watching the tour de france and eating cheese curds at the state fair and…hard core training for my first marathon. So far, my training has been pretty relaxed. Easy 10 mile long runs. About 25 miles a week. Towards the end of May, the training picks up. Will I be ready? I think so.

*up until this log post, I’ve been writing “mississippi river road path” without specifying which direction. About 85% of the time, the direction has been north, towards downtown. But occasionally, like today, I run south, towards Minnehaha Falls. As it gets warmer, I imagine I’ll be running this direction more, finishing at Lake Nokomis for a quick swim or continuing on to Lake Harriet. So, it seems important to start noting my direction on the path.

Hover over the log to reveal an erasure poem about opposites.

april 4/5.25 MILES

47 degrees
mississippi river road path

Thomas Gardner writes:

I’ve been feeling my way all week toward some still-unstated problem, running without a watch, not tracking my thoughts, trying to let the run distill itself down to breath, or rhythm, or attention–a single maple leaf suspended in a web, five feet over the trail. It’s hard to do. Thoughts rise and rattle, spread their wings, legs trailing them over the pond (35).

Was thinking about this as I ran. It is hard to “let the run distill down to breath, or rhythm, or attention.” I did have a moment, though, when I was focused on the river. Illuminated by the sun, it looked white, almost, but not quite, like it does when it’s covered with snow and ice. I like watching the sun and the river when they get together. The other day, the sun was focused on one spot in the river, a circle of light on the surface, inviting me to enter it. What would I find, I wondered, if I dove in?

april 2/3.05 MILES

50 degrees
mississippi river road path

Almost beat the rain this morning. Just started drizzling when I was finishing up my walk back to the house. During the run, while listening to the 3rd episode of S-Town, felt disconnected, disembodied, distanced from everything: the path, the people, the cars, linear time. I entered the dreamlike trance that Thomas Gardner writes about in Poverty Creek. This trance was not transcendent or like Quatro’s running as prayer. And it wasn’t triggered by a runner’s high. It was the result of the wind, the impending rain, the somber podcast and the gray sky that made everything look fuzzy.

april 1/9.5 MILES

54 degrees
mississippi river road path

A beautiful morning. Spring is finally here! I ran too fast in the first couple of miles and paid for it. I think it was because too many people were out on the trail. It felt like a race and I always run faster in a race. I didn’t wear headphones so I was able to hear the birds and when people said good morning to me. I estimate that I greeted around 20 people. There was one stretch of the trail where it felt like I was saying “good morning,” “good morning,” “good morning,” over and over again. It felt good, unlike the Franklin hill. That was tough. Had to walk part of it.

march 31/5.3 MILES

37 degrees
mississippi river road path

Nice, easy run. Listened to episode 2 of the new S-Town podcast. Enjoyed it, even though I probably would have preferred no headphones, but I had to catch up to Scott before he spoiled the twist at the end of the episode. I think hearing the twist (no spoiler), at the end of my run, made my whole running/listening experience more intense and other-worldly.

For my silence poem, I decided to read over my past log entries. Here are some themes that I noticed:

themes from running log (jan-march)

  • restlessness: a need to move
  • used to be active, then inactive, then active again
  • thinking brain vs. moving body
  • confident bodies
  • walking vs running….is walking failing?
  • what do I think about when I run?
  • Best’s Disease
  • hills
  • not over-thinking, over-analyzing (balance)
  • breaking bad habits
  • fuzziness…what words can I used to describe this feeling of not seeing…being out of it? removed? disconnected
  • feel the ground beneath us (pay attention, be present and aware)…winter: icy, slippery, sloppy, cold
  • Even as we try to transcend our bodies while running, we are constantly reminded of our limits. We are bodies. We need that reminder to ground us and to keep us from getting too lost in the dreamlike state that running creates. Gardner discusses the dreamlike state in several other entries.
  • reminder, not getting lost…ALSO A REMINDER OF DANGER, to be too disconnected is not to hear, be alerted….DISTRACTION…THINK ABOUT THE RUNNER WHO JUST DIED
  • to be distracted or not? sometimes noise is necessary, distraction is necessary
  • feb 15: 3 stories about the sun
  • feb 16: calf injury
  • feb 20: discipling (building up) and undisciplining (breaking down)
  • goals, joy, speed, competition, being proud of being good (feb 21)
  • list of noises heard, feb 26
  • distracted running feb 27, feb 28
  • march 3 more on sounds
  • march 4 noise can drown out distractions, like annoying runners who talk too loudly
  • more sounds, march 11
  • discipline as reining in my excesses?
  • limits and freedom (remember: beside body….still connected to it, but not tied down to it)
  • beside each other, where a need to engage and an ache for silence can be met

march 29/3 MILES

48 degrees
mississippi river road path

Today I decided I wanted to listen to music and run faster. So I did. Splits: 8’38”, 8’22”, 8’08”. Negative splits are always nice. It felt difficult but not undoable. The amount of effort I seemed to be putting in made me think my splits would be even faster. Oh well. Still felt great to fly down the path, working hard but knowing, after months of training, that my body could handle it. That joyful feeling of flight is my goal, not a fast time.

3 ruminations on silence

one: Lately I’ve been running without headphones more, listening to my breathing and the sounds around me. I’ve also been trying to allow for silence in my running. To not shut everything out with a playlist or a podcast. I like it. I like listening to the crunch of my feet on the path and how that sound changes depending on the condition of the path. I like picking out the different bird sounds, even as I can’t identify them, as I’m running above the river. I like being able to hear people greet me and to respond with a “hello” or “good morning”. And I like listening to the wind and coming up with words to describe its sound, like “sizzle” or “static on a tv.”

two: Read an article this morning about how Minnesotans are listening to more audiobooks lately, partly because of they’re more accessible, but also because their quality is higher. The article ends by speculating on the dangers of listening too much to audiobooks:

The pull of audio content is so strong that fans are beginning to wonder if having an easily accessible stream of stories is crowding out something vital: silence.

“We never want to do nothing and just think about life,” said Ubl. “If you study creativity you know inspiration comes when you allow your brain to turn off. Much can be found in the world of quiet but we’re uncomfortable there,” she said, “and we are missing something important.”

I agree with what Ubl says, but that’s not the main reason I’m making note of her words. Her quote is the final paragraph of the article. Another one of her quotes is used towards the beginning:

“I like the escapism, but I need the learning,” said Ubl, 28, research director for the generational consulting firm Bridgeworks. “I feel like I’m wasting time when there’s any moment of my day when I’m not learning.”

I imagine that this contradiction in her thought was, at least partly, taken out of context. It’s not explained, or even pointed out, in the article. But I think there’s more going on here. This contradiction exists for a lot of us. A need to always be doing! and learning! and engaging! even as we ache for silence. Many people are scared of that ache. Others don’t have time for it. I want to find some balance, where the need to engage and the ache for silence can be met beside each other.

three: I’m curious about silence. I decided to begin work on a poem about it with lots of questions. At this point I’ve only just started it. I’m using it to explore silence and to play with the tension between technology and nature that seems to saturate discussions about the need for silence.

What is silence?
Is it the absence of noise?
The shutting down of devices? Ideas? Expectations of what you should be doing?

What is silence?
Is it the abundance of sounds
that we usually fail to hear? That we often refuse to listen to? That don’t require a wifi signal?

Why is silence
so fragile, easily broken by the innocent rustling of the leaves or the oblivious ramblings of a bluetooth user?

Why is silence
so deafening, amplified by the absence of noise or the aftershocks triggered by years of exposure to LOUD music? LOUD thoughts? LOUD demands?

How is silence
ever possible when the hum of the city rumbles beneath us, a constant reminder of what has been done, is being done, will be done?

How is silence
ever comforting when it shuts out our access to inspirational podcasts and forces us to confront the beliefs about ourselves that we work hard to conceal?

march 28/5.75 MILES

49 degrees
the ford loop

What a beautiful day! Hardly any wind. Bright sunshine. Low humidity. Nearly 50 degrees. As I left the house, I didn’t know how much I would run. When I started running, and felt stiff and sore, I was sure I would only run 3 miles. But then, as my body warmed up and I listened to the birds and absorbed the calm stillness, I decided to do more. 5.75 miles in all. In past years, when I was running too fast, spontaneously adding miles was not something I’d ever consider. I’m glad my new training is helping me to run longer so that I can enjoy spring days like today. 

failed experiment

I tried experimenting more with recording my thoughts on the run. I turned the voice memo app on and put it in my right breast pocket. The plan was to  keep the voice memo app recording the entire time I was running and to try and speak as much as possible. To record as many of my random, stray, disjointed, jagged thoughts as I could. That was the plan but it failed. While I had been a little self-conscious when holding the phone up to my mouth and recording my thoughts, I refused to speak at all when my phone was in my pocket. It felt strange. I felt weird. Beyond self-conscious. Why? I’m not sure why holding the phone up to my mouth makes it easier.

I did manage to record some interesting rhythms with my phone rubbing against my jacket. And some cool sounds of birds, cars, kids playing at their school park, fleeting conversations, dogs barking. Every so often I’d say hello to someone. But, this recording is 57 minutes long and I’m not really interested in listening through the 95% of it that is just my phone rubbing in my pocket and me breathing, just to find the 5% of interesting noises or me saying “good morning” or “hi” or “hello.”

Addendum: After writing about the failed experiment, I decided to experiment some more. THis week in my poetry class we read Bernadette Mayer’s poem Failures in Infinitives. One experiment we could try was to do our own failure poem. Here’s mine:

Failures in Infinitives, Sara’s Version

why am I doing this? Failure
to speak into my phone while running
so as to record my thoughts
to remember my ideas
to access my truths
to bust the mind/body binary. Failure
to stop creating barriers
to find ways to speak
to invite openness
to not be afraid
to not care if others look at me strangely or dismiss my ideas so as
to be valued
to be understood. Failure
to avoid exposure so as
to be left alone
to not be bothered
to be given freedom to do what I want without the need to justify it in the only terms that have currency: Success! Validation! Status!
Failure to stop second-guessing my visions
to believe in my ideas. Failure
to reject a system that reduces me to my use-value. Failure
to undermine a system that sees products while ignoring process. Failure
to dismantle a system that actively discourages my need
to create new things
to experiment with im/possibilities
to see failure not as failure but as an opportunity
to take risks
to be uncomfortable
to learn new ideas and perspectives. Failure
to understand that the vulnerability that failure produces is not a weakness but a strength that enables us to be open to others
to say “good morning” or “hello” or “hi” to a person instead of an iPhone

march 24/5.25 MILES

38 degrees
the ford loop*

Tried something new today: 2 minute warm-up, then run 9.5 minutes fast/walk for 30 seconds x 4, finish by running fast until reaching 5 miles

Ran with my headphones, listening to my cheesy playlist. It was humid, but not too cold. At some point, it started drizzling, but in the middle of a run, it was hard to tell, except for the relief from the heat of my effort that it brought. I think I would try this workout again. It helped me to go faster.

*the ford loop = west mississippi river road path/ford parkway bridge/east mississippi river road path /lake street bridge/west mississippi river road path

march 22/5 MILES

28 degrees
mississippi river road path

Today for my run, I tried a variation on the poetry/writing experiment that I did on Monday. Inspired by my teacher’s suggestion to modify my first experiment with Bernadette Mayer’s proposal to “attempt writing in a state of mind that seems less congenial” (Please Add to This List, 12), I decided to record my thoughts while running up a steep and long hill: the Franklin hill, also known as the I-94 hill. Length: about 1/2 mile. Grade: Not sure, but it’s steep. I figured that running up a steep hill for several minutes would generate a “less congenial” state of mind.

The Experiment

I ran an easy 2.5 miles to get to the hill. I took a quick break to set up the voice memo app on my iPhone, then I ran up the hill while talking into my phone. I stopped at 3 minutes and 39 seconds, which was a little less than half a mile. Finally I ran home.

The following is a transcript of what I said while running. The only thing I’ve done to the words is to add line breaks. I tried to use the line breaks to mimic the breaks in my words as I caught my breath:

Starting my run
up the hill
I’ve taken a break
with a walk
so
I’ve definitely slowed my pulse down

The traffic above me
as I go under the bridge

The traffic beside me
as it goes by me
on the river road

I’m sure
the drivers think I’m weird
holding a phone
up to my mouth
talking
while running up the
steep
and long
hill

The sun
is in my eyes
my shadow behind me now
For most of the run
here
my shadow
was ahead of me
Sometimes
right ahead of me
Sometimes off to the side
almost as if
it wanted to lead
and then
be beside me
Now
it wants to follow

Breathing here a little harder
the rest has worn off

Almost under
the Franklin bridge

jagged breathing
pulse is higher
I wonder how much of this I’m recording?

I love hearing my feet
on the dirt
in the gravel

I’m approaching a person
a test
will I keep talking,
or be too embarrassed?

Funny
under the bridge
echoes
strange sounds
feels like someone’s following me
but it’s just my shadow

just passed the turn off for Franklin
I’m going to stop now

march 11/10 MILES

13 degrees/feels like 1
mississippi river road path

My third week in a row doing 10 miles! Most of it felt good, except for the parts that didn’t. Just one part, actually. Coming back from downtown, running down the big hill, my right thigh started to hurt. It was hard to run. When I realized that I was clenching my fists and grimacing a bit, I decided to stop for 30 seconds to shake it out. Starting again, it felt much better for the remaining 4 miles.

According to the runner’s world pace tool, my long runs should be between 9:55 and 11:15. It’s a challenge to run that slow, about 90 seconds slower than I ‘m used to running.  But I did it today. I averaged a 10 minute pace.  I ignored the shadow Sara that wanted me to run faster so that I could stop being passed by other runners and so that I could finish the whole run in less than 90 minutes.

I ran without headphones. Heard lots of birds, cars, conversations, crunching shoes and barking dogs. Because I was running much slower, I barely heard my breath.

Some Distinctive Sounds, a list

  • At first the wind blowing gently through the dead leaves on the trees sounded like shimmering, but after listening to it for a while, I decided it sounded more like static on a television.
  • The brittle twigs sticking out of the fence that I hit as I ran too close to the edge of the path to avoid the runners approaching me made a “boing” sound. I can’t remember what I thought they sounded like as I hit them, but now, reflecting on the run, I imagine they resembled a distant diving board, right after someone has jumped off of it.
  • Without headphones, I heard a lot more people saying “hi” to me. Had people I encountered in past runs said “hi” at the same rate, but I just didn’t notice because I was too distracted by Barry Manilow or Billy Joel or Krista Tippett or Michael Ian Black?

march 9/5.25 MILES

26 degrees
mississippi river road path

A wonderful run. The wind was down–only 8 or 9 mph instead of the 25+ it’s been at for the past 3 days. Wind like that scares me. The howling. The trees violently swaying. The dead leaves and random debris ominously swirling. A few years ago, I recall being outside at a park when it was really windy. It was sunny and otherwise a beautiful day, but the wind was making the big trees towering over the playground and my head tremble and shake.  I had this moment of panic where I suddenly felt trapped…on the planet. No place to hide or be safe from that wind or those trees. Overly dramatic, I suppose, but it was such a weird and intense feeling.

Felt really great during my run. Slowly built up my pace. Lifted my knees when I ran up the big Franklin hill and didn’t think I was going to die at the top of it. I guess running that hill 4 times a week is paying off.

march 7/4 MILES

65 degrees
ywca track

I’ve been trying to run in windier conditions but today’s 25 mph wind was too much. Decided to run at the Y track with Scott before lunch. Experimented with tempo, running fast and slow. I can tell my legs are getting stronger; the run felt good.

Early on in the run, a group of preschoolers were on the track. Tethered together with a rope, they walked the perimeter of the track. They were led by two caregivers and (mostly) stayed out of the way as I ran by. Sometimes when I run around the track in the evening, I encounter little kids who want to race me. A small part of me wishes I appreciated this and that I could enjoy running beside them, but I don’t. I find it irritating and try to avoid it. Most of me is okay with my grumpy attitude.

After the run, went to library and picked up four more books that I requested for this run! project:

So far, I’ve read a wide range of things about running.

what I’ve been reading, a list

  • personal narratives about why runners run
  • race reports
  • training tips
  • academic essays on running and philosophy/feminism/rhetoric
  • dissertations on running and identity/feminism/narrative
  • interviews about running habits
  • memoirs about learning to love running
  • popular books about running as sacred
  • anthologies of running stories
  • tweets and news reports about elite athletes
  • fictional accounts of runners
  • stories about pacing and/or coaching other runners
  • accounts of suffering injuries; accounts of recovering from injuries
  • essays about running and grieving.

These readings have come in many forms.

  • books, almost all of which were checked out from my public library
  • blog posts on online journals, running sites, individual runners’ sites
  • tweets
  • newspaper and magazine articles
  • online short stories in literary journals
  • academic articles
  • dissertation chapters

I’m trying to develop a reading/researching plan for myself, in the form of a syllabus. It includes weekly reading lists, assignments and running challenges. Not sure how well it’s working because I keep changing it up. I’m all over the place with my reading, but that’s what makes it fun and undisciplined.

march 4/10 MILES

34 degrees
mississippi river road path

My second week in a row running 10 miles. This one was a little rougher than the last. Halfway up the big hill near Franklin, I had to stop and walk for a few minutes. Partly because I had already been running for over 7 miles, including about 2 miles directly into the wind, and partly because I was running about 30 seconds too fast per mile. I’m pretty sure I know why I was running faster. At the beginning of my run I entered the river road path just ahead of two women running with a dog. They were really LOUD and they seemed to be hovering behind me, not fast enough to pass me, but fast enough to always be nearby so that I couldn’t block out their annoying voices. The next time something like this happens, I should stay slow and just turn up my playlist, letting the Foo Fighters drown them out.

march 3/5.25 MILES

19 degrees/feels like 8
mississippi river road path

No headphones again today. Enjoyed experiencing the quiet calm of running by the river, but even though it was calm, the path was still teeming with life and activity. I’m struck by the abundance and variety of sounds.

Variety of Sounds, a list

  • Birds that pecked, cawed, squawked, chirped incessantly, honked, cooed and rooted around in the dry underbrush on the edge of the bluff.
  • Cars that plodded, swooshed, revved, thundered, puttered and hummed as they ambled on the river road or passed overhead on the bridges I ran under or rushed hurriedly on the freeway that I could only faintly hear at the halfway point of my run.
  • Branches that thrashed against the iron fence when I accidentally hit them. That cracked under my feet as I ran by. That rustled vigorously when a squirrel climbed on them in the tall tree across the road and more gently when the wind caught hold of their dry and brittle leaves.
  • Critters that barked, screeched, thumped and noisily plodded through the vegetation near the riverbank.
  • Sandy debris that crunched under my right foot and rubbed against a small pebble that had become lodged in the slightly worn tread of my shoe as I ran up the small hill, just past the Lake Street bridge and that cracked under the heavy wheels of the cars that drove over it. Mulched debris that absorbed most of the sound of my striking foot, converting its usual sharp thwack into a dull thud.  

How much of my run was occupied with listening for these sounds? Not as much as you might imagine. I still managed to think about whether or not I was going too fast, why my nose was running so much, if it was better to do a snot rocket or blow my nose into my buff (didn’t have to think about that one too long; I’ve only tried shooting snot once and it was a gross failure) and how to swing my left arm in a way that loosened up the tension in my shoulder but that didn’t make me look like the woman that passed me running down the Franklin hill who had good form–a nice kick and arms that swung by her sides, but still managed to look awkward and frantic.

feb 27/4 MILES

36 degrees
west mississippi river road /lake street bridge/marshall hill

Ran with headphones today, listening to a playlist. Have decided that running without headphones is better for connecting to the running and for thinking. Music can distract and isolate me from the external world. Sometimes that’s good; I like to feel separated. But not all of the time.

Ran past the spot where a runner was killed just last Wednesday; hit by a “distracted driver” (cell phone? drugs? alcohol?) while crossing the street in the crosswalk. Very sad and scary. This is one of my regular routes and I’ve run in that crosswalk dozens of times. Not today. From now on, I’m running on the steps that lead directly up to the bridge instead of crossing the road and taking the easier climb. With my macular dystrophy, crossing roads is already dangerous enough. I can’t always trust that I’ll see a car coming. I don’t need the added risk of distracted drivers.

feb 26/5 MILES

32 degrees
mississippi river road walking path

A beautiful Sunday morning. Decided to challenge myself to running without headphones. Focused on listening.

Things I heard while running, a list

  1. Crows cawing
  2. Other birds chirping and cooing
  3. A woodpecker pecking
  4. Geese honking
  5. The swoosh of cars as they drive by on the river road
  6. The worn wheels of a car, plodding along the river road
  7. Some funky music, playing from a radio on a bike
  8. The sharp thud of my shoes on the paved path
  9. The dull thud of my shoes on dirt and debris on the path
  10. The crunch of my shoes on salt and gravel on the path
  11. My breathing, usually slow and measured, occasionally quick and labored, like when climbing the Franklin hill
  12. My zipper pull, rhythmically banging against my jacket as I run
  13. An airplane, faint and far above my head
  14. The wind rushing by my ears
  15. The wind rustling in the dead leaves that never fell off the trees this past fall
  16. Cars thumping above my head as I pass under the Lake Street Bridge
  17. The quick and unexpected laughter of a woman on a path below me
  18. Bike wheels, rapidly approaching
  19. Phantom steps from runners who seem to be gaining on me, yet never pass, managing to turn off onto another path before reaching me. The crunch of their shoes is so slight that I wonder if they even exist, or if I’m imagining them
  20. The clanging of a dog’s chain
  21. A walker talking quietly on a phone
  22. Children faintly laughing

That’s all I can remember.

feb 23/10 MILES

33 degrees
mississippi river road walking path/stone arch bridge

I did it. 10 miles without stopping. I have run this distance before. I’ve even raced it four times. But doing a 10 mile training run still seems like a big deal, especially one with so many huge hills. I experimented with fueling by eating a mini pretzel starting at 30 minutes in and then every 10 minutes. That worked. Will it work during a marathon? I doubt it; that’s a lot of 10 minutes and a lot of pretzels.

Currently reading Jen A. Miller’s Running, a love story. Miller mentions Katherine Jeffers Schori, so I looked her up. In an interview with Runner’s World, Schori says this when asked if she feels running helps with her work:

Absolutely. It’s focusing for me. In my tradition we might talk about it as body prayer. It’s a meditative experience at its best. It’s a sort of emptying of the mind.

Body prayer. I like this idea. I want to learn more about it.

feb 21/4 MILES

41 degrees
mississippi river road walking path

I’m in the midst of reading Rachel Toor’s Personal Record. Just before heading out for my run, I came to her chapter, “Speed Goggles.” In it, she writes about her attraction to men who are fast runners; regardless of how they actually look (too skinny, gangly) or act (“uncivilized”), the fact that they run fast makes them attractive to her.

Toor understands going fast to be a mark of commitment and excellence, and what is necessary to be a good runner. Toor wants to be a good runner. She writes:

I have always been a good student, a type A cliché. It I was going to do something, I was going to be good at it….I was never going to jog for my health. I didn’t care all that much about my health, having always been healthy. If I needed at some point to lose weight, there were easier ways to do–starvation, say. No, with running as with all else, I wanted to be good (26).

I thought about Toor’s emphasis on being fast as I got ready to leave the house and then during my run. What do I think about speed? Do I want to be fast? Mostly, I’m taking the opposite perspective: I want to go slow. Being willing to slow down, to stop going so fast in training, is more of a mark of commitment and the willingness to focus on a bigger goal: to run longer–in a race, but in years as a runner, without stopping to walk and without injury.

I also thought about this idea of being good. What does it mean to be good at running? Is it necessarily tied to winning races or going faster and regularly achieving new PRs? If so, I guess I don’t want to be good. At least I don’t think I do. It’s complicated. I like going faster in races and I do have PR goals, but they don’t define the joy I get from running.

I feel stuck in writing this log entry. Too much to think about in terms of my dislike of competition–especially aggressive competitors– but my fear that I’m more competitive than I admit; my stubborn dedication to not being too good at things; my extreme reluctance in ever sharing my times with others, which I attribute to not wanting to brag but wonder if it has more to do with not allowing myself to be proud of my accomplishments.  

feb 20/3.2 MILES

51 degrees
mississippi river road walking path

Managed to finish running before the rain came.  Rain in February?! Was pleased with my easy run; slowing down for the past two months is working. My run seems easier and more relaxed and my heart rate isn’t getting so high. I enjoy the challenge of going slower. Fighting against pride and an investment in being fast. Cultivating humility. Relishing the run, not just rushing through it to achieve another training goal.

My marathon training, much like most things in my life, is a combination of focused dedication to building up helpful habits (in this case, running slower in order to run farther and to avoid injury) and breaking down harmful ones (like running too fast in order to be fast and to be faster than others).

Is this a combination of becoming disciplined (building up) and being undisciplined (breaking down)? With my interest in virtue ethics and the ethical effects of accumulated practices, and my virtual identity as undisciplined, I’m fascinated by this question and the difference between becoming and being here. In my training, I’m giving the edge to being undisciplined, focusing my attention on breaking bad habits and being vigilant against developing new ones that could be just as bad, or worse. This undisciplining work enables me to become disciplined–or focused, dedicated, committed?– in my practices.

 

feb 15/5.3 MILES

23 degrees/feels like 15
mississippi river road path

3 stories about the sun

one

The sun was bright today. So bright that as I ran away from it, towards the big hill on Franklin which is 1/2 mile from the bottom to the top (I measured it today), it cast my shadow and I was able to watch myself running. Which Sara-self was this runner just ahead of me? Was it Joyce Carol Oates’ “ghost-self” from To Invigorate Literary Mind, Invigorate Literary Feet, leading me to imagine new worlds and new stories and new ways of being?

two

 At the bottom of the big hill, directly facing the sun, I fumbled with my sunglasses before beginning my 1/2 mile climb. The glare, combined with the fog that had already accumulated on the glasses, blinded me and as I focused on the effort of running up the hill, I was transported to some other existence, almost floating above time and space, that cars and other runners couldn’t access.

three

 Running on the bluff, above the river, I spotted the sun shimmering on the water. It remained always just ahead of me, no matter how fast I ran, leading me to the parking lot where I end most of my runs.

feb 12/8.6 MILES

30 degrees
ford bridge and franklin bridge loops
17 mph wind

Not too bad of a run while it was happening, but I’m wiped out now that I’m done. I ran the first few miles a little faster than I should. I need to work on (almost) always starting slow in the early miles.

Towards the end of the run, felt like I was floating just above the path. Not fully outside of my body, but not quite in it either.

Almost forgot to write about the dogs:

  • Encountered at least three dogs, in two different locations, roaming–more like bounding–free, with no owners in sight
  • Witnessed two different dogs trying to bolt away from their owners, who were frantically trying to hold on to their leashes and calm the dogs down

Was it the wind and slightly warmer weather that provoked the dogs?

feb 2/4.25 MILES

16 degrees/feels like -1
minnehaha creek path/mississippi river road path
15-16 mph wind

I was a little nervous about running because my right knee seemed a bit stiff, but I did it anyway. I’m glad. It was a good run, even if my knee kept reminding me it was there.

Other than my knee and whether or not it might cause me problems, I can’t remember much of what I thought about while I was running. Just this morning, I wondered about this:

What do I think about when I’m running? I should try to remember and make a list. But, will I remember? Thinking while running is almost like dreaming. I rarely remember my dreams and even when I do I can’t recount them in any coherent way.

my thoughts while running, a list

  • Don’t slip on the ice.
  • Damn, it’s cold, but not too bad.
  • I wonder if I will be running directly into the wind for most of this run.
  • How soon before my sunglasses fog up?
  • The creek is not frozen over. That’s weird. It looks beautiful, shimmering in the sunlight.
  • Will I see anyone else running today?
  • My knee is stiff. Is this a bad sign? Am I going to injure it again and not be able to walk for a month? [then I imagined getting hurt and not being able to run my race next Saturday.]
  • [when the one other runner that I encountered passed me] Don’t speed up. Stay steady and run at your own pace.
  • This feels good.
  • [when I break out into a big smile because it feels good to run] I wonder what the drivers in the cars think when they see me running and smiling?
  • How’s my heart rate? Better check it.

That’s all I can remember. Pretty boring and mundane. No new insights on life. No new perspectives on the landscape.

I’d like to track what I think about more. I think I’ll turn this into a challenge.

feb 1/3 MILES

15 degrees/feels like 0
minnehaha creek path/mississippi river road bike path

Brrr. Welcome back cold. And burning lungs. And double gloves. And icicles in my hair. I don’t mind. I’ll take that over big gloppy puddles or snow-packed roads any day. I was worried that the sidewalks and path might be too slippery, and that I wouldn’t be able to run outside today, but it wasn’t too bad. Ran 2 out 3 of miles around 8:40 pace.

I think I saw one other runner on the path today. It probably has more to do with the time of day that I was running than the cold. Minnesota runners like running in freezing temps. Also encountered a few walkers, including one with a big dog that unsuccessfully lunged at me. Ever since my family got a dog last March, I’ve been more sympathetic to dog owners when they’re trying to control their dogs on the path, so the lunging didn’t bother me.

In general, I’m trying to chill out more about other people on the paths. I’ve realized that getting upset and nearly losing my shit every time a biker whizzes past me (either when I’m biking or running on the edge of the path) and doesn’t say “on your left” isn’t good for my well-being and doesn’t really make a difference. Or that giving a trot of runners the evil eye when they’re running towards me, taking over almost the entire path and almost forcing me into the grass or the road will probably go entirely unnoticed by those path-hogging runners. Of course, it’s easy for me to be relaxed right now, in the middle of winter, when there’s hardly anyone on the path. Let’s see how I feel about being chill in summer when the paths are congested with clueless walkers, oblivious runners and speed-demon bikers.

 

jan 31/XT

70 degrees
road bike on stand, the front room

Another bike session. 33 minutes. Watched the men’s 10000 meters from the 2012 London Olympics on YouTube. Chose it because the video was 39 minutes long and because I like watching running when I’m biking. What a great race. Not fast, but very strategic. Mo Farrah won gold, Rupp silver. Runners were bunched up for most of the race, with the announcer warning that they could easily get tripped up in such close proximity to each other. When I run in a race, I’m not usually around other runners. Most of the time, it’s deliberate. I like the solitude of running and I don’t always trust other runners. They flail their limbs, jab their elbows, spread out and block the road or dart out unexpectedly.

As I prepare for running a marathon, I wonder if this strategy of isolation is harmful.

jan 30/4 MILES

30 degrees
mississippi river road bike path

Snowed this morning. Less than an inch, but enough to cover all the sidewalks. Took Delia out for a walk before heading out for run. Partly because she needed one and partly to test how slippery it was on the sidewalks. Very slippery, it turns out. Towards the end of our walk, Delia darted after something, yanking the leash. I slipped, spun around, almost regained my balance and then fell on the ground. Very lucky to not be hurt at all. Decided to go out for my run anyway. Risky, but worth it. The sidewalk was slippery, but the bike path was not.

Had a decent run. Encountered the snow plow clearing off the path. Minneapolis Parks are the best (literally, the best) park system. They clear the river road path within a few hours after it’s stopped snowing, even faster than the city of Minneapolis clears the streets, which is pretty fast too. Love this city. And love the kick-ass park system!

podcast: How to Be Amazing, ep 48 (M Lewis’ tone seemed more arrogant than confident. Not a big fan.)

jan 29/4 MILES

25 degrees
mississippi river road bike and walking path

Another week of running done. A bit cold. Fairly windy. But, I didn’t really care. It was a nice run.

Encountered a big group of runners–I refer to these groups as “trots of runners.” Some organized run, with water stops. I’ve been thinking it might be good to try one of these runs once I’m into the serious miles, but I don’t know. I like to run by myself. To almost, but not quite, get lost in the dreamlike state when everything shifts and it’s all a bit fuzzy. I need a new word for fuzzy: out of focus? distorted? bewildered? but not disembodied, because I still feel my body. 

In Poverty Creek Journal, Gardner describes the dreamlike state in many different ways, including: “I’m hardly aware of myself, my edges grown fluid and instinct. Not real speed. No thinking. What would it take to enter this dream, to let it take me completely?”

He contrasts this dreamy state with reminders from his body…so far in my close re-reading of it, he’s discussed an aching calf. For me, it’s my right knee. The one with the bone spur. Also the one that hurt so much a few weeks after I started running over 5 years ago that I almost stopped completely. That knee keeps me from getting lost, from running too fast or with too much abandon. It doesn’t usually bother me, but it frequently haunts my runs, putting me on edge, wondering if my training will keep me injury-free.