the zen of running

Happy Sunday evening, folks!

Hardly any woods or camera time this weekend, but fun was had. The executive summary? A old friend came up for the weekend, we got all caught up, prosciutto and arugula pizza happened (who knew?), pinot noir came and went, and I ran nine miles this morning.

The Garmin battery died less than a mile in – which I’d seen coming – so I had to wing timing the intervals between the one-minute walking breaks. This meant I had to tune in to data that I guess I typically shove down the subliminal intake valve. In other words, a totally fresh experience, as though I’d never run before. I was running a longer route that I’m not as intimately familiar with, and since I’m currently using an interval I don’t typically use, there was no way I could rely on sense memory of where these walking breaks typically happen. 

I completely blew by the first one. Some intervals were too long (I waited too long before walking, in other words) and others were almost certainly too short. I got a 5.2 from the technical judges for my lack of finesse, but the team spirit judges gave me a perfect 6.0. Which I have to credit to the weather:  it was a glorious, glorious morning – intense blue sky, puffy clouds, and mid-30’s, which is invigorating without being in the least bit uncomfortably cold.

The art of running, in case you non-runners out there are secretly wondering “how do you do that?”, is learning to distinguish between “huh, interesting sensation” and “ow”. That’s kind of a zen perspective, no? At first, it’s all “ow”, so you have to find the right recipe of patience and perseverance to get your momentum going. Just tune in, without judgment...try going a little farther next time…no worries… It must work, because here I am, running half-marathons, and I was a kid who loathed P.E. and was an indifferent athlete, growing up, at best.

In the afternoon, Best Beloved and I helped strike the set on a work-related event, which was taking place in the best possible place for a work-related event: a field so muddy, that cars were getting mired in it, throwing up huge sprays of sticky brown glop. Oh, there was also an internationally-renowned ski jumping competition going on, and that was cool. (How do you train for such a thing? I mean, how do you get started training for such a thing? They hurtle themselves down a course so steep, that just a photo of their view from the top of the run makes me dizzy. And I’m not even afraid of heights. It’s lunacy, but the kind I can get behind, from a safe distance.)

Then we went through the car wash! I know, who cares, right? But isn’t it true that one of the coolest things from your early childhood was getting to go through the car wash? No? That was just me? Okay.

Yeah, so that was my weekend.