My eyes open, excitement builds inside me. Quiet morning. Wait, not quiet, just me. Except my mind is full of commotion. Sliding noiselessly from our bed, while Jaz and the dog share somehow coordinated gentle snores, my day begins. Holding my breath to make as little sound as possible, pulling open the clothing drawer near me slowly to minimize them getting disturbed, grimacing at the drawers’ squeaks, taking out my gear to face the darkened sky outside. Sleep long gone from my eyes, and a growing impatience as the clock ticks on. The heart pounds, the mind already busy like a stopwatch. I feel like a formula race car crew, changing tires in the middle of a race. Fast is the name of the game.
Get outside. You don’t have much time. Before the dog wakes up.
The pressure to walk the four-legged creature immense when it wakes, so I must move quick. But first, the bathroom, the brushing, the flossing, the coffee, a few minutes of calming breathing, all that chips away a bit more time from the actual task. Instead of gratitude for that self-care, a building anxiety to get out there. Yet I keep adding tasks to that schedule, knowing I am taking away something, yet a growing stubbornness remains in me not to delete; just keep adding. A typical trait of mine. Load up until I can barely stand up, ratcheting up the burden to avoid the dog. It’s become a game to see how long the dog will allow my morning to go the way I want it to. Each few moments, I glance at the phone, time getting away from me.
I should have gotten up earlier.
A common refrain in my quest to get it all done all before nine am. The rushing to get up, to dress, to read, to write, to learn, and then get to the running. Ahh, sometimes my morning routine becomes the bane of my existence. Curiosity still my addiction, my need to grow, know, consume the written word still blazing inside me. The random need to learn Spanish, to take classes on MasterClass, to take some time to read my current book, along with my New Yorker, then punch out a few measly words on the laptop, everything done in a rush to get to the next thing. Is my life a series of things to do? I know that road to despair, so I brush it off. Time to go.
Got the shoes, the Beats (the wireless kind), the cellphone holder, the sunglasses, a hat, pull up the compression socks to my knees and finally geared up. My running uniform complete. The door opens to a fading darkness. The road greets me, now no more silence, birds chirp as if cheering me on, time to get to it, to get in the steps, miles, miles away from home, to lose myself in the music, to just feel the feet hit the sidewalk and propel forward. Taking it in, stretching my legs, shaking my hands, it is finally time. Running my focus, desire, the need for speed, I got this.
How hard can it be? Just put one foot in front of the other. It starts easy enough. I start with the usual playlist, the one I keep meaning to change, set on random but seems to always play the same songs in the same order, and so I nudge it along by playing my favorite, “Eye of the Tiger” from my favorite movie Rocky IV, the one with Drago, but my old readers know about that (like they know of my morning routine), (do I have anything new left to say? Another theme of mine), and for a moment, it all seems repetitive, pointless, just another run, with not much improvement. As usual, minutes lost in my quest to get the perfect song started. A metaphor of my life perhaps? And it hits me I am wasting time.
Move already!
A slow jog, visions of being fast already gone with my heaving breath. Speed demon I was not. Stuck on one gear. No matter what, always the same pace and time it seems. Hopelessness takes over, but then another song comes on, and my mood shifts, the cadence of the song pushes me forward, a bit faster, a bhangra song so I imagine I am dancing forward, my pace increases (or so I think), the breaths come faster, heart races, and for a moment the song becomes my world until it fades, and I snap out of it. Imagining myself doing dance moves that I know I will never do gets me going, makes me believe I could do more. Time passes or seems like it. Suddenly. I stop even though it throws off my pace, my desire to push forward. Heavy breathing accompanies me with each step forward. My mind says one thing, but then the body decides something else or maybe vice versa. Regardless, the legs stopped running. At a standstill just like my life.
A desire rises inside me to look at how far I have come when I already know that I haven’t done the work to go far. Checking in filling in for actual effort, as if looking makes up for the lack of running. But the need to know overwhelms me, and so the phone comes out. And as predicted barely a quarter mile. I put the phone away. Looking around, trees on both side of the road make my path clearer, suddenly a pelican, yes that bird, lands on the trail in front of me. A stare off. Again, removing my phone from the runner’s band, aiming the camera, my breathing slows so as not to scare the animal, and yes I got the picture.
Shit. Its blurry.
Jaz in my head, reminding me that I take the worst pictures.
Gotta try again.
Same result. The need to memorialize great, already the caption prepared for social media or my countless group texts or both. Time ticking on, wasting away, as usual. The need to post greater than putting in miles. Running just a way to get more likes, more attention, more “look at ME’s”, more things to shout out to the world with my internet megaphone, to virtue signal that somehow, I am better than others. A line for the tag comes to me.
“Bird greets me on my run.”
Gotta get the picture. In that moment, the running put by the wayside, the hands steady, and I zoom into the bird who stares at me the entire time, seeming to know my idiocy and need to record. What does it all mean? Is this my legacy: blurry images and fuzzy words? Is this all? Back to the run, to the distance. Already cutting down from what I’d said. Five miles down to four, maybe three, the energy to keep moving forward suddenly depleted. Why do I do this? I am not a runner, who am I kidding. An unbidden vision comes to me from junior high where the first-place runner in the mile lapped by me by an entire track length, humiliation became my crown then. Even then it felt as if the metal lead instead of blood pumped my legs. Yet I still finished, with no one to cheer me, no one to say that’s gotta suck.
I am not a great runner anyway. Who are you fooling with this? Mediocre as always.
Thoughts thunder through, filling me up, dragging me down, each step now heavier, and it seems like forever.
Stop! Breathe!
Eyes closed, I stand, arms akimbo, taking it all in. There is no race to win, nothing to prove to anyone, but that’s a lie because there is a sort of hunger inside to show others that I am beating the odds. Eating and drinking what I want because I exercise. I run, I Crossfit, I intermittent fast (abandoned quickly). Then slowly the legs begin moving, a slow walk, must keep going, destination irrelevant as long as there is effort. Progress means movement. No end in sight. Effortfully taking steps is the journey. And then breaking into a slight jog, turning up the music, once again the running begins.
Breathe. Keep moving. One more step, mile, song. Go on.
Yet it’s getting harder. Knees a bit achy, music no longer moving me. A dream like state comes over me as my gaze drops to the floor, and each step seems to move me not as far as I wish to go but enough. Thoughts for the day flood my mind, things to take care for the day, random memories blast me as I huff forward. Flashes of Papa, Jaz, mom, the pandemic, strings of conversation float through me, muffling the music. Instead of beats pushing me forward, regret, grief fuel my run. Each foot strike forward powered by the past in which so many mistakes formed my experience. Stopping seems as urgent as a full bladder, but for some reason, the legs keep pumping, keep moving me further away my present, forcing me to relive things I wish I’d done differently.
Ducks fly overhead, but my gaze locks onto the trail, moving, ignoring the LA river full of rainwater, but somehow my mind registers it all. Something loosens inside me, and I disappeared into my mind and the music, the words fueling me. In my head, I am racing but really, I am plodding along like an old horse grazing on hay, but it’s the thought that counts, right? The days beauty engulfs me, and the sun pierces the back of my next with its heat, but it no longer matters, the pain gone and as if oiled keep piston me forward. It hits me now the reason for the running. It’s for this brief joy, weightlessness, when all seems possible. Now I add miles, pace be damned because it seems doable. I even tinker with the idea that I am selling myself short, and consider adding more miles, but then the dog comes to my mind, and my heart lightens at her image.
She is no longer a chore, my life has meaning, my goals and morning routine led me to running. This is my life. A series of tasks, routines that allow me this freedom. A decade ago, this future me would have been a stranger to those close to me. And the joints loosen, breathing gets easier, floating in my thoughts, riding the music, pushing forward, further away as app on my phone tells me I am onto mile 4. It all makes sense. It’s never mattered about the speed, the pace, the music, the gear, the routine. It’s just about doing it. The journey not the destiny. The action not the words. Just being out is enough. I am enough. Running got me into a zone I didn’t think possible, and with a smile emblazoned across my face, I cross the finish line that is my life. The horizon appears endless.