Beyond-ness.

Tonight I ran five miles.  I got started a bit late because I got pulled over for having a taillight out.  And then I made Ty's dinner, changed, and hit the road. I had already decided it was a Chris Pureka night, so I put her on shuffle.

I stopped to take pictures several times, but other than that, I ran it fast.  For me.  And I thought about words and smells and feelings.  I tried to hold them in my mind.

Up North First Street I was pushing hard.  I was running fast and pushing myself to keep it going.  My eyes were narrowed and the world was bumping up and down while I was smooth.  The stoplights in front of me jerked in time with my feet hitting the ground.  I pushed for my breath to hurt, to burn in my chest.  And I thought of sort of a word that captured what I was feeling at that moment.  I tried to catch it and hold onto  it, and I thought that I had.

But when I slowed down and started letting my thoughts wander, I came back looking for it and it was gone.  I pushed through my  brain for it, but it had left.  I only knew one thing to try--run fast again and see if I could find it.  So I did.  I increased my speed again, gritted, thought of determination and fuckitness and then, there it was---beyond-ness.  That feeling of being beyond in my body, beyond what is there when I'm not pushing hard, when the sidewalk is a tunnel and the song lyrics are mixing in poetry that I can't write.

Poetry that I can only run, a rhythm that played itself with my words and the lines from the song.  I can't write it because it only exists on that plane, that heartbeat, in that vein of pumping that is something like sex but only in certain moments, and not the climactic ones.  The ones that are made of sculpture, of instinct, of existence and not thinking-ness.

The last half mile I wanted to run fast enough to breathe hard, be out of breath, feel the heat of my chest catching at the air.  I told myself, open your mouth and the air will flow.  Just open your mouth and let your body breathe.  It knows how to breathe.  It was dark.  I was dark.

When I finished I put my hands on my knees for a minute and fished for the feeling.  Euphoria?  Warmth in my limbs, aliveness and power and a gloriously used feeling.  I walked the rest of the way home in a cocoon of spent exertion and felt like I could keep walking blindly on.  But, of course, I didn't.

Mississippi Blues and more.

It's been a week since Mississippi Blues.  It seems like it's been longer!  Maybe that's because I had to go back to work last week.  It made the week seem very long.  Well, I have to work to support my running habit, so it's a good thing.

Mississippi Blues was super fun.  Probably anyone who reads this will have seen the pictures on facebook, but here they are with commentary.

My computer is being really weird right now and not letting me size things.  Here we are before.  No blues--just happy people getting ready to run a marathon.  I'm so happy to be meeting so many new people!  Running has brought so much strength into my life, and now it's bringing more and more people.  Some of them I see, and some of them get added on facebook and I get to see what's going on with them from different parts of the country.  Either way I love it.

My during shots are courtesy of I don't really
know who.  They were loaded to facebook and
I saved them.  Here's Annette and me and below is
Carrie and me.  I'm clearly never going to be a career blogger because my photo placement capabilities continue to be a challenge.  The race started off fine and pretty much stayed fine.  We stopped along the way for some photo ops and saw so many familiar faces along the course.  There are more pictures I should include but they are on my phone...and I'm a little lazy.

I went ahead of Carrie toward the half and spent the last 10 miles or so with Julie from Minneapolis.  She was running her 50th marathon and we bonded over hill walking, mostly.  There were a lot of hills.  I was glad to have the company to take my mind off of the running a little.  And it's always nice to share the time with someone new.

No race is complete without the post race food, and we really lucked out with our choice near Vicksburg.  The salsa was good and spicy and the vegetarian fajitas were amazing, particularly the broccoli and cauliflower.  The corona light was great, too, but of course what makes it best is the company, as always.  Whether it's my friends and family down in the river market or my running family on the road, being able to share times like these with friends is a huge blessing in my life.

This morning on my cold rainy 10 mile run I was thinking about a friend and all the things I want for her right now.  As I was thinking and praying, I realized that everything I was praying for for her, I needed in myself, too.  Peace and comfort to deal with hard times, strength to make the difficult decisions, clear sight and understanding to know the right thing to do, or at least to see the truth inside myself and act on it.  The self-preservation to reach for the hands that are there to bring comfort and laughter and happiness.  And I was talking to another friend about happiness, about how it comes as quickly and sometimes fleetingly as other emotions.  We all want to "be happy" as if happy is something other than every other feeling, some kind of constant state of being.  It's not.  It's a feeling just like any other, a good one, and when it comes, it must be wallowed in, swum in, taken in, swished around, allowed to tumble over my face--even if everything else in life is upside down or sideways.  It can't be pursued--I have to do the things that I need to do and trust that happiness will come in one form or another.

As my friend Kristin assured me would happen, I am not waiting until Little Rock to race again.  Just last night I felt a momentary pang at not having another race soon, and this morning I saw on facebook that spots had opened up in the Mississippi River Marathon.  So I signed up.

There are highs.

My state of mind defies explanation these days.  It is alarmingly simplistic to suggest that there are highs and lows, though there are.  The highs are sometimes in the same place as the lows: tears that are about pain that is born from loving.  The lows come maybe when you think there will be highs to distract you.  Either way, the fact remains that there are highs, and I sing about that.

Run for the Ranch was miserably cold and windy, but it was super fun and full of memory-making because of the people involved.  I'll mostly let the pictures do the talking.

We left at 6:45 in the morning and stopped at Hardees (somewhere in North Arkansas!) for breakfast.  We ate and then had some photo ops.

Carrie can't seem to get her eyes on the camera, though.  In the jukebox one I was pretty sure she was looking out the window for dudes.



Once we got to Springfield we had plenty of time to kill.  We got bibs and chips and shirts and stayed warm in the car until time to go back inside to get ready.  We had a maniac group shot on the steps, and then a couple of shots with Annette, Carrie, and me.

I loved on some huge dogs and leaned against one to get warm while we were waiting for the start.  He had a serious labrador lean going on, but he was much bigger than a lab.  I had dog hair all over my tights but it was totally worth it.




I thought I would warm up during the race but I was sort of wrong.  I didn't think enough of the wind and also didn't take into account that it would get dark during this race and get cooler.  I definitely should have worn my running jacket.  I would have been more comfortable.  Carrie and I entertained each other (and some other runners) with stories, singing, and a few rounds of dirty ABC game.  I find myself to be much more funny, apparently, than the people around me find me to be.  Whatever--Zero of 'em!

I didn't feel really strong at any point in the race, really.  It was probably a combination of a few things--maybe a couple too many beers the night before, not enough to eat before the race, soda before the race, cold wind, and maybe too quick of a pace starting out.  A few times I really did question my ability to finish.  We slowed down considerably for the second half and, through a combination of really bad singing and a ridiculous amount of whining and threatening to quit and announcing my hatred for marathons, we finished.

I wanted nothing more than to get warm, but the lobby area where we were sitting was not warm.  Carrie and I huddled under space blankets.  We both had warm clothes in the car just across the street, but the thought of going back outside and walking down steps was too much.  So we just sat there and suffered.





Finally, we headed out to get what I'd been singing about for hours: food and beer.  I had never been to Red Robin before--only heard the obnoxious commercials.  I thought it was a fast-food burger joint, but Arland and Annette assured me we could get beer there, so I was game.  I drank that big blue moon in the picture, two of those shots, and a pint of Mother's Three Blind Mice, a local Springfield brew.  I ate some salad.  We laughed.  Dinner and drinks post-race may have been the best part.

We piled back in the car to head home and the girls completely flaked on entertaining Arland for the drive.  I think I was asleep within minutes until I woke up at a gas station.  The clerk there acted like he wanted to card me for my scratch off tickets.  He said I looked 23 and I asked him if he wanted to get married.  He said I made his night.

My day and night were made by new friends.  The best part: we get to do it all again this weekend for the Mississippi Blues Marathon!