secret.genius [momentum]

Mistake

I've picked up a little speed on my shorter runs. I can break 9 minutes on one mile. I can run 9:30 over three miles. This morning I found myself trying to run 9:30 over the course of five miles. It sucked. Too fast, too far. Speed versus distance. Anything five miles and over requires a slower pace. For now.

There's a race in ten days. I have to rediscover the rhythm of the 10:00 pace. If I start out slow and steady, I should have enough left to push through in the last couple miles, and come in under 60 minutes. A sub-60 10K used to sound like a fantasy. But I'm so close to making it a real thing. So close.

Rain

I woke up this morning to pouring down rain.
Rain coming out of nowhere and apropo of nothing.

Not gonna lie. Running in the rain feels like a Nike ad. (Despite the fact that you're currently sporting Brooks.) Running in the rain feels like you are the only one in the world ballsy enough to go out and get wet. Everyone else is curled up indoors with a snuggie and a cat, sneezing over a cup of tea.

Running in the rain feels great, until your hair starts to get really wet, because you don't own a hat, because the circumference of your head is freakishly large, and you know this because your mean friend measured it for you in Jr. High.

And you realize you don't look like a Nike ad at all.

But you keep going, and adjust your hair clips to keep the deluge off your brow.

You keep going, and you don't even care what you look like anymore. Not even at Mile 4, when that bulldog chased you for half a block.

You keep going, damp, with your socks squishing in your shoes, and you don't care what you look like, until afterwards, when you're standing at the counter in the gas station buying your Gatorade. And the friendly attendent says, "Gym today?" and you say "Oh, no. I ran." And when you look up, his smile is a little nervous and he very steadily meets you directly in the eyes.

When you get home, and look in the mirror, you realize.

Oh. Hello.

Probably best not to run in a white t-shirt on a rainy day.

Wind

I ran today.

After four days of not running.

There is a big difference between running only once or twice a week and running diligently every other day.

A big, fat difference.

Also, there's a big, fat difference between running in 70 degree weather and 80 degree weather. And 90 degree weather? Forget about it.

Also, it's windy out there.

I'm like: Why in hell does it seem like the wind is coming from every single direction this morning? But I think it was because the winds were coming out of the northwest, and I was mostly heading north and west, so by the time I turned around and started heading south, I was already defeated.

I gleaned this little nugget of information from a five second Google search:

A “substantial” wind (i.e. one approximately equal to the pace you are running at) will set you back 12 seconds per mile with a headwind, and aid you by 6 seconds per mile with a tailwind. (Source: runnersconnect.net)

My question is this: Why won't the wind push you forward as hard as it pushes you back?

I've never liked wind. It blows dust into my eyes and irritates my contacts. It always blows my bangs the wrong way. It relentlessly disorders my thoughts, like a bunch of balloons tethered to strings tangled up in my grasp.

*****

So, I haven't written in awhile, because I kinda forgot how.

See? Like that. Like I don't think you're supposed to end a sentence with the word "how".

So, running has been the new writing for awhile.

But, if I'm going to have to run with tangled balloon thoughts, I'm going to need writing to get them untangled.

(What?)

(I don't know.)