I prefer to run alone.

Last week I found every song in my iTunes library that had the word “run” in the title and made a playlist. I was not thinking of exercise when I did it. Whatever wanderlust took hold of me this year has not subsided. The cyclocross season kept me grounded and focused and gave me an excuse to stay in town every weekend. Now it’s mostly over and my feet are itchy again. I get in the car and suppress impulses to hit the gas pedal and hold my breath until I hit Arizona, Colorado… Mexico?

It doesn’t matter much where, it’s a simple thirst for new landscapes. The desire to reach up into the sky and pull down a new backdrop. Instead of driving aimlessly, I often assuage myself by fleeing on foot. Running is more than an act of exercise or a calculated execution of training. Somewhere in the subconscious it’s the motion of escape (and, ultimately, return).

I ran to Laurelhurst Park last week for the first time in months. It’s a short run – two miles to the edge and back, three miles if you throw in a loop around the perimeter. My legs are used to pedaling, so they were happy to take it easy and enjoy the journey. I settled in and watched my feet hitting the pavement below me while the neighborhood floated past.

When I run, it’s as if I have always been running. As if it is my body’s most natural state. The motion feels like a memory.

When I get to Laurelhurst, my legs want to keep going so I turn to make the loop around the park. The last time I did this it was summer and the air was hot and bright. I recall that I rounded a corner and looked up the pathway where a man was standing, looking at me.

Jeffrey. An old friend I’d not seen in years. A young photographer who made me see differently with my camera and later served as my guide in the darkroom.

Since I was already running and he was already standing there with his arms open, I kept moving toward him. The light around me went yellow and everything switched to slow motion and I crashed into him screaming. “JEFFREY!”

I couldn’t hear anything except the loud music in my headphones. I didn’t notice that his leg was broken until afterwards, when he stumbled backward a little and I caught him in my arms. The hug became a rescue and his mouth was open so I could see that he was laughing. When I finally reached up to pull the headphones from my ears, the world around me clicked into place and I became aware of children and picnics and lovers and ducks.

He said, “Heidi Swift, where have you been??”

And I said, “Everywhere, Jeffrey! Everywhere!” which was an exaggeration, but felt true in my heart.

Then we sat in the grass and talked about photography and the best place to source expired film and skateboarding accidents and the way it feels like magic when you put the paper in the final tub of chemicals and your image starts to rise to the surface – as if it’s been hiding in there all along just waiting to come out.

***

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We didn’t know about macronutrients or sports nutrition or myofascial release. We didn’t get massages or wear compression tights to bed or have fancy tools to measure our output.

We had a coach. His name was Storksen. He yelled at us while hanging out the window of a VW van.

He told us where to go and how hard to run but, basically, we went out and tried to beat each other. Up hill repeats or running quarter mile intervals around the track we had only one goal – to finish first.

At races we stretched and jogged around for warm up – there were no carefully prescribed regimens or scientifically calculated sequence of events. On the line we prayed together because we were all Jesus-freaks though we raced for a public school. When the gun went off we RAN. There were elbows and a little shuffling during the first 400 meters and then things usually shook out.

During the first race of our Sophomore year, my best friend Sarah G. went down in a start line scuffle onto the jagged surface of a red cinder track. I remember looking at her and holding my hand out to help her up, but when she saw me her face turned into a scowl and she screamed, “What are you doing?! RUN!!”

I left her because I knew she would catch up. Sarah G was always a few clicks faster than me.

We ran from the gut.

I once ran in borrowed shoes because I’d forgotten mine. They were too small and by the end of three fast miles my feet were bloody, the tips of my big toes rubbed off.  I had a good race that day. I went fast. The shoes were an afterthought.

Our uniforms were 12 years old and it was bloody murder trying to get funds for new ones even though we didn’t lose a single league meet for four years in a row. I always wore bright flourescent sports bras that you could see underneath. When people made fun of me I took it a step further and bought flourescent socks with flourescent racing flats. Our team colors were navy, red and white. Nothing matched. It didn’t matter.

During my junior year I had a problem with nosebleeds. I’d get one almost every other workout. They didn’t bother me much and sometimes I would come trotting back to campus looking like I’d just returned from a massacre. After a while, it got annoying to try to stop them, so I just let it flow. It kept my coach entertained.

We used to race from the gut. I didn’t even know heart rate monitors existed and I had no idea what technical clothing was for. We wore cotton shirts and cotton shorts even when it was pissing rain on a long Saturday run in late October.

Technology now is mind-blowing and I love it as much as the next fitness/running/cycling nerd, but there were days when the only thing that mattered was how hard you could make yourself hurt for 45 minutes while keeping Sarah G in your sights on the infamous “Big Fairwood” loop.

Hydration was a water fountain on a path near the golf course and god-forbid you drink too much because you’ve still got three miles to go and everyone knows that Schram is going to put the hammer down as soon as we crest the next hill.

They were good days. Rugged and hard and raw.

I train like an adult now, with charts and graphs and records and measurements and calculations – but when things get complicated  I like to stop and remember what it felt like to know absolutely nothing and feel absolutely everything.

We used to race from the gut. And every now and then we should remember to live that way too.

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Besides the fact that I L-O-V-E the rain (you can throw punches at me next time you see me for saying that, but it’s true), I also love to run. Which is probably why I love cyclocross so very, very much.

I love running (and cross) so much that I convinced my editor at the O to let me write my last column about tennis shoes instead of pedaling. Sweet! A cycling column about running.

Mash on this link to read it: My Secret Runner’s Heart

Enjoy and thanks for reading!

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Running 100 miles?  Insane.  There are people who get all worked up about riding 100 miles for Pete’s sake.

Running around the world?  What are you, crazy?

Serge  Roetheli is.  Because that’s what he did -with his (equally crazy) wife Nicole riding support along side him on a motorcycle.  Move over, Forest Gump, you’ve been thoroughly trumped – and, besides, you weren’t even real to begin with!

What might be most amazing is that Serge and Nicole managed to shoot footage throughout the entire, epic journey.  And it looks like they found some great people to help them put their film together, because the trailer is fantastic.

I’m looking forward to the release of this film and I plan to weep through the entire thing like the overly-sensitive, hyper-emotional jock that I am.  Sal can vouch for this – there will be tears.  Many, many tears!

You can put the runner on a bicycle, but you can never take the sole out of her feet.  Or something. :)

I may have an opportunity to talk to Serge about it over the next few weeks.  In the meantime, check it out:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1C0a0jYTYQ

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5:30am Alarm: Roll over. Hit snooze. Tell myself I should send a cancellation text because doesn’t it look kind of gray and cold outside?

5:40am Snooze Alarm #2: Roll over. Hit snooze again. Tell myself I will get up a little later than planned and drive to meet my running partner instead of running there. It will cut two miles off my daily mileage total, but it’s going to be a decent mileage day either way so who cares.

5:50am Snooze Alarm #3: Roll over. Hit snooze again. Remind myself that all the gear is laid out and waiting from me. Getting ready is as easy as sleep-walking over to the bathroom, tying a few laces, securing a heart strap, grabbing a water bottle, and bolting to the car. I can do that in 10 minutes, right?

5:58am: Wake up before the next alarm and think, "Shit! I gotta roll!" The dread of a track workout sets in. I tell myself I will just run to the track and then around the track at just below tempo while watching Natalie do the actual intervals. Yeah, that’s it.

6:20am: Arrive 5 minutes late at Natalie’s house. Still sleepy. Natalie’s super-happy-fun-ball spirit starts to wake me up. This is our first running workout together. I get excited but still tell her that I might go out mellow-style when we get to Grant Park. She indulges me this bald-faced lie because she knows it is making me feel better.

Of course, we ran the two miles to the track and I decided to start the interval workout with her.

"We’ll see how this goes."

It goes well.

My body starts making running motions and my legs yell at me: "This is what you’re good at, jackass! Stop selling yourself short!" We find our target pace and kick out the prescribed dosage of pain:

2×800
4×400
4×200
4×100

The 800s hurt a little. The 400s hurt a little less even though we overcook them a little. I can feel the previous night’s ride in my legs but my heart is making up for it.

Natalie and I are good together. Finding the right running buddy is tricky. The slightest hint of competitive energy and I’m turned off. I want to compete in events, not in training. In training, I want to run smart. I want to stick to my plans. I want to have fun and meet goals.

I spent four years in high school competing with my friends in every last training run. I measured my worth on any given day based on whether i could hang with a small group of closely matched girls. I soared when I was on top and despaired when I was bested.

I hated losing. I let it define me. I ran against other runners, not against the clock. It made me tenacious and feisty, but it also tormented me. The problem with comparing myself to the next long-legged, pony-tailed freshman to come along is that I simply could not control the performances of my opponents.

On your best day, someone else may be better. So you’ve got to learn to recognize your best for what it is and remind yourself about what really matters. Let the competitive spirit drive you, but be careful it doesn’t consume you.

It’s taken me years to get past the idea that I have to win absolutely everything in order to feel worthy in life.

Today on the track with Natalie, I began to see that I might actually be able to be fast again without having to be a head-case about it. I am constantly amazed by the purity of her intention in the world, her generous energy, and her calm tenacity.

We’re on to something here – and I’m excited about it.

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I’d like to share how I worked huddled over my laptop upstairs next to the electric heater until 4:00pm when the tech came.  Or how I watched as a massive storm gathered outside the window as I did so.

I could wax melodramatic on the driving rain and howling wind that battered me as I ran for 85 minutes in the dark black of a stormy night after the tech left.  How my running tights were heavy with water, how my rainjacket soaked through 40 minutes in, and how my amazing Swobo wool base-layer managed to keep me somewhat warm while my hands and legs turned bright red and lost feeling.

I could tell you all that shit, but the bottom line is that I survived.  I made it back.  I finished the run.  Even when I had to start it in the dark of night and even when I’d been huddled in sweaters and hats all day in a freezing house.

You go out and do these things.  It comes down to duty.  And honor.  And trust.  You promised yourself this was going to happen so if you don’t make it happen, how will you believe yourself next time.

Failing to deliver on promises to yourself has the exact same effect as failing to deliver on promises to others.  Compromised trust.

I came home last night frozen to the bone.  Sal was not home when I left the house so he was surprised to see me there, standing like a drowned rat, shivering.

"You were outside in this?"

Over an inch of rain fell yesterday.

Out on the most remote part of my run, I realized that I was not going to find the vacuum today.  There was no place to disappear.  No place to go.  I was up on the ridge above the golf course with the wind ripping through me and I had to just take it.  I was keenly aware of every sensation.

The streetlamps creating textured patterns of light on wet hedges.  The monochromatic quality of a stormy dusk.  The weight of my shoes.  The weight of my legs. 

I let every thought come to me and turned my attention toward whatever cropped up.

While I ran, I tried to frame my experience in a way that would diminish its apparent misery.  When I did, I thought of a race report that MtMann left in a comment here the other day.  It’s the story of a mountain stage in the 1988 Giro D’Italia that quickly puts all whiny, pitiful voices inside of you to rest.  It is going in my personal "Anti-Wimp File".

The Day the Strong Men Cried

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It’s awful.

This happened to me on Sunday morning.  The longest 45 minute run of my life.  Ten times longer than Friday’s 80 minute scorch-fest.  Seriously.  Bad.

As I suffered, I wrote this post, taking notes on all of the various things that I was doing to keep myself moving forward. The main goal is to remove your focus from the reality of Your Infinite Human Suffering and redirect it onto something more productive. Check out my ten agony-inspired strategies after the jump…

Distractions. Smart distractions in some cases, but distractions nonetheless.

1. Promise yourself stuff.  This is as base and low-down as it sounds. Just tell yourself about all the amazing crap you are going to give yourself as a reward for getting through this hell. Monster tacos, plates of pasta, chocolate shakes… whatever it takes. Shit, I was promising myself Zipp 808′s, Kreitler rollers, a Rapha jacket, and a Sicilian vacation at one point. Am I actually going to get any of that stuff?  Probably not. But that’s not the point. I’m gullible when I’m suffering and so are you.  Tell yourself stories, asap.
2. Re-route.  One of the simplest ways to immediately divert your attention is to change your planned route. Now you’re thinking about where you’re running, how you’ll still measure this, and whether re-routing was a good idea.  Either way, you’re not thinking about suffering anymore. There are some variations on the re-route technique that count as the next few strategies:
3. Run Towards Home.  I did this three times yesterday. Running towards home does not mean you’re going to stop there, but it does mean you can if you want to.  Chances are, you won’t.
4. Run uphill.  I did this yesterday, too.  I re-routed so that the course started turning up.  Running uphill demands a special kind of effort. Instead of focusing on how crappy you feel, you tend to focus on just. getting.  up.    this.    damn.   hill.  A lot of times by the top, you actually will feel a little better.
5. Run to where there are people or other runners.  As runners, we are a lonely lot. We suffer in a desolate vacuum of pain. We rise from our beds with the weight of our assigned lot heavy on our hearts.  Not really… but that’s kind of what it feels like sometimes, huh? If you’re running alone, think about re-routing to a road or path where there are more of your kind to bolster you.  I did also did this yesterday, detouring into Laurelhurst Park to soak up the easy smiles of some Sunday joggers. They made me feel better. A little.  Seeing other runners can be hugely motivating.  The fast ones steel your resolve and the slow ones inspire you with their determination.
6. Force yourself to smile.  Sound cheesy? It is. But it works for me sometimes. Smiling has a noticeable and very real effect on your mood. It will help.  I swear.
7. Run faster.  What!? No, really. Increase your pace if you’re not already going fast (you’re probably not if you’re really suffering so much). This is similar to turning uphill.  Funnel and focus the pain, instead of letting it become all-encompassing and completely unwieldy.  Wrangle it. Gather it. Focus it at something.  It may not diminish in size or intensity, but at least you are putting it to work.
8. Stop. Have a coffee (or water, or whatever). Go.  This isn’t ideal.  The point is to keep running.  But if taking a 15 minute break in the middle is enough to let you gather your wits about you and pull your shit together so you can bang out the rest, then do it.  Stop, stretch, go into a cafe and get water or a shot of espresso (if you’re into that kind of thing and can stomach it), relax for ten minutes, then get back out there.  This is akin to the "mini-set-break" in weight-lifting.
9. Focus on what’s going right and remind yourself about your accomplishments.  Now is not the time for modesty. Let your mind fill with memories of your glory moments, shards of past victory, fractals of triumph. Go to the ego. Draw from it generously. And if you can find anything – anything – that is going well right at this moment, remind yourself about that, too.
10. Change your workout.  This is a last resort – because we all like to finish what we set out to do – but consider altering your intended workout.  If it’s intervals, decrease the number a bit.  If it’s a long, moderate run, consider splitting it in half and coming back to finish it later in the day. Be creative. Sometimes being flexible enough to reconsider your workout is going to get you better results at the end of the day. If you can come back to it later with renewed energy and 4-6 hours of positive visualization under your belt, you might be able to deliver much better effort and intensity and reap increased benefits.

Getting through a running workout that isn’t going well can be challenging and frustrating.  Sounds like a lot of stuff in life, huh?

As in life, be strategic, be positive, and be pro-active.  Don’t let the workout run  you over.  Take control and get it done.

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I never know where the mind will go when I step outside my door and put my feet one in front of another.  One second ago I was in a trance and now I am thinking of Sarah Schramm.

Why?  Because I’m going fast.

In 1992 the CCP (Cross Country Posse) shows up for the first summer workout and we are met by a new girl. It’s my sophomore year.  I have worked hard to establish myself in this group.  I am fast-ish.  I am competitive.  We all are.  We know where we stand.  Mostly.

Sarah Schramm is new and our coach, The Stork, tells us to be nice.  “She’s fast.” he says, “Or so I hear.”

As you can imagine, we have mixed emotions about hearing this.  We’re fast too.  What does fast mean?  How fast is she?  Who is this girl?  Why didn’t she run last year?

We stretch and chat.  We make her feel welcome.  We may be 15 years old and threatened, but at the end of the day we are nice kids.  Still.  We’re dying to see where this is going to go.

Schramm is small.  Shorter than most of us and without the long, look of the chronically underfed cross-country runner.  She looks like a trackie.  Like a good 800 runner.  Maybe a miler.

We’ll see how she does with the distance.

A speech from Stork and then we’re off.  It’s the first workout of the year.  We’re taking it easy.  We’re catching up.

Schramm is not.

In fact, she pulls away immediately.  We keep track of her for a few turns and then we lose her.  She’s gone.

We murmur and try to play it cool.

“Wow.  What’s that all about?”

“Does she know how far we’re running?”

We never see her again.  Schramm is fast.  She runs with the boys.  She runs with Nate Fucking Gregory.  Not just any of the boys – she runs with the fast boys.

She is standing there stretching with them when we get back to the start.  It’s five miles later and she looks happier than she did when she started.  Storkson is smirking.  He looks like a pig in shit.

The world has stopped spinning correctly and somewhere way out in space the stars are crashing into each other in terrific displays of chaos. I look up and expect to see the blue August sky falling  into the fray of us.

This is not the way things happen. This is not how it’s supposed to go.  No one runs with the boys.  No one runs with Nate Fucking Gregory.  I don’t care how fast you are – we run together.

We are all thinking the same thing.

Along with this thought we are all thinking some version of “Yeah – but can she beat Angie Fortner?” and “Shit.  I just went from 3rd to 4th.  That blows.”  We have a state contender on our hands and we don’t know what to do with her.

Schramm has just raised the game.

She leaves.  Storkson approaches.  “Did you see her foot turnover?  Did you see it?”

This is the worst part.  Schramm stealing some share of my allotted Storkson love.  Schramm displacing me among his favorites.  Schramm?  With her little legs and curly hair?  Really?

“I didn’t notice.”

Of course i noticed.  I had a missle lock on her for as long as I could see her – I just never fired because I couldn’t keep up.

We go home.  The season roars on.  Schramm leads us, then gets injured, then loses focus, then comes back.  When she is there, she’s fast.

We come to love her.

I can never run with her, because her legs turn twice as many times as mine do.  Even when I’m running in front of her, it looks like I should be running behind.  Mine is a stride, hers is Speedy Gonzalez on crack.  Her style drives me crazy.  I need to fall into rhythm with someone.  I need to fall into step.  I stick with Gagnier because we’re built the same and our feet love to land together.

Gagnier is who I think of these days when I run.

I have named my HR monitor after her.  She is my gauge.  She is my motivation.

Today I run with a zeal I’ve not felt in years.  My legs are snappy when I leave the house.  They feel good.  I feel good.

Everything has come together.  I know it’s going to be a good day.

40 degrees, light wind.  The mail carriers are wearing funny white rain hats that look like they’re on safari.  They have capes on.  I should be cold, but I’m not.

Head to toe black.  Today is the first day that I am brave enough to wear the black running tights.  I feel like you should be fast to wear them.

I do them justice.

It’s a comforting discomfort.  A steady pushing.  A constant acceleration.  The heart beating 170 times a minute, sometimes more.  The rhythm is a trance.  My mind turns off and I go into the vacuum.

When I come out of it I stop the clock and slow down.  I have run straight past my house and I am already halfway to Stumptown.  Tuesday, on the same route, I hit time 4 blocks away from my house.

I know I’ve had a good day.

I head in the direction of coffee, remembering the cash I stashed in my pocket.  Then I flip to the file to get the data.

10.25 miles
80 minutes
7:49min/mile
Avg HR: 167

I have blown through the 8:00min pace mark.  I have blown the run into a million pieces.

It’s more than I would have ever hoped for at three weeks into training and it has cracked something open inside of me.

Something big.

*

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Ten days.

His trips do not usually keep him for that length of time.

In his absence I become a strange creature.  A bachelor of sorts, hobbling together meals that would never otherwise pass for meals, leaving dishes in the sink.

Today is the usual computer work with added welcome-home preparation, punctuated by a run, a ride, and a plyometrics session.  One moment I’m washing dishes, the next moment I am in running tights.  Sometimes both at once.

I have found my legs.

I cannot wait for his plane to land and so I take my legs out for a tour to keep myself busy.  In my ears a new mix of "Beirut", "Hot Chip", "The Stars", "Her Space Holiday", and "I Love You But I’ve Chosen Darkness".  There is one song by Mason Jennings.  It is the outlier.  If it were part of my data set I would throw it out.  Today I keep it in on purpose.

I have named the mix Nine Miles. That’s the estimate for today.  Nine miles.  Technically, I am running for time, but I predict 9.4 miles total.  It’s a rough guess based on previous weeks pacing, and the feeling in my legs, which is calm and confident, but not necessarily eager.

My route is into the Northeast.  Up some of my old familiar bike routes all the way out to the Rose City Golf Course.  It seems a long way to go when I am thinking about it. 

I usually pass the Golf Course on my way to Rocky Butte.  It’s a cold and gray place during the winter but, then again, what in Portland isn’t?

I’m eager to get there but I set out with a steady pace.  At one mile I give in to the fact that I’m overdressed, stop the watch, shed layers, re-attach musical gadgets, start the watch, and am back at it.

Range.

It’s what I love about running, and what I know I will grow to love about cycling.  The places I can go, the things I can see, the miles I can cover.

With my feet.

I am headed up 47th Avenue battling wind when I realized that it has been nearly 4 years since I have gone further than 8.25 miles. The foot.  I’ve been protecting the foot.  Running for joy.  Running without structure.  Running without consistency.

Just running.  When and where I felt like it.  No more, no less.

Times are different now.

The plan is lined up, the workouts mapped out, the runs scheduled and miles increased in careful succession. I’m surprised by how fast my body responds to the discipline. How fast it comes around.  Remembers.  Delights.

The muscles now are loosening up.  The arms feel good.  Strong.  They move with the momentum and purpose of dual pendulums.  They are marking off the pace like a metronome. 

I check the watch.  165bpm.  Perfect.  It will fall when I go downhill, no matter how I push.  It will climb when I climb.  With 165 on the flats I’m in good shape.  I am shooting to average 160.

Beirut is a strange running companion.  An orchestra in my ears.  Too happy maybe for a fast run, but perfect for a day like today when the body feels steady and calm and just wants to do what it knows how to do.  Some days, the music is the only thing that gets me through but today it’s almost white noise. 

I am paying attention to my breath.  I am starting to know exactly what 160bpm feels like when measured in the pressure of air taken through my nose.  I am starting to know 165, 170.  Less than 160 and I’m unaware of breath. 

Mile 4 is where i turn into the golf course, to cut across.  The course map in my mind is meticulous.  I studied it carefully, memorizing where I would be at which point.  I could look at the wrist for this information, but I get tired of the watch.

I like to run for landmarks. 

I never look at the distance on my wrist.  I never look at pace.  Time and heart rate.  That’s it.  That’s all I want to know.

I climb to a ridge above the golf course and the wind is frozen and sharp.  I tug down the sleeves that have been pushed up.  Reinstate the gloves.  Pass a miserable looking woman with a dog. Think about stopping to re-jacket.  Dismiss the idea.  I’ll be off the ridge soon and it will be too much.

Heart rate at 171.  The wind is a bitch.

I start to do math calculations in my head.  Pace calculations.  Not for this run, but for others.  This many miles in this amount of time equals x.  This many miles at this pace = y. The numbers and distances are irrelevant but the equations get me through the wind.

The mind is a funny thing.

Mason Jennings comes up in the playlist, which is on shuffle.  The outlier.  He takes me away from the math.

This is a vacuum.

I like to say that sometimes I can sort through difficult problems or challenges – reach resolutions during runs.  But those are only on the runs where I ignore my body.  This run, with this attention to breath and heart.  This is a vacuum.

I disappear into it.

It’s like shooting through a selective focus lens. Certain things are unpredictably clear, the rest blurred and forgotten. The clarity is random and unordered. One moment I’m aware of my foot, the next; my ears.  Then there’s a curb.  I am aware of my body suspended in air, touching nothing, as I leave the street en route for the sidewalk.

Then it’s gone.

Miles 6, 7, and 8 have disappeared and I am suddenly heading over the freeway overpass, watching cars speed along with important places to go.  I’ve taken a wrong turn at some point and I’m beginning to think that it made my route longer.

Either way, this is the home stretch.

My legs find another gear. They take the heart to 169 and I have never been more comfortable.  Wet streets, trees that look cold, old houses, car doors opening, stoplights, crosslights, restaurants, cyclists.

Another runner.

I notice the runner.

There are now only 3 minutes left until I call time.  I have no idea how far I’ve gone. I’m close to home, but I won’t make it in three minutes.  The runner is stretching.

He has the look of fast.  He finishes with his stretching and begins to run.  Confirmed.  The fast looking runner is fast.

Time.

I hit the stop button and slow to a walk.  Check the stats while I walk the 4 block cool down.

Distance: 10 miles
Time: 80 minutes
Pace: 8:00min/mile
Avg HR: 161bpm

Numbers. 

Sure, just numbers. But the pace indicates progress. The comfort indicates evolution.  The feet indicate happiness.

The heart is calm.  The legs still springy.  We walk the cool down, enter the house, and jump on the trainer for intervals.  After such a run, I don’t even hate the trainer to death. 

I sweat like a waterfall.  It gathers in pools underneath me.  Eyes fixed on clock ticking over.  On, off.  On, off.  Max, recover.  Max, recover.  Agony, relief.  Agony, relief.  Over and over again. 

I’m a monkey with a ponytail doing tricks on a bike that goes and goes but never gets anywhere.  Look mom, no progress.

Water break.  Plyometrics.  Jumping, jumping, more jumping.  The legs holdout.

Sal’s plane is in the air.  I have just enough time to empty the dishwahser, hang my bike on the work stand, shower, and dress.  As I walk into the airport his plane is landing in a terrific turbulence.  Plane thrown right to left, people screaming.

"Madone." he texts, "That one took the cake!"

"Hurry!"

Ten days.  Ten miles.

Numbers.  Happiness. 

*

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